


The Ties that Bind

by snowcloud8



Category: Hotel Transylvania (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Turned Into Vampire, Conventions, Drama & Romance, F/M, Family Drama, Human Dennis, Kaiju, Monster Hunters, Mummies, Politics, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Vampire Turning, Vampires, Werewolves, Witches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-07-13 19:20:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16024331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowcloud8/pseuds/snowcloud8
Summary: Life is full of choices. It has unexpected twists and turns, and most importantly, second chances, and no one knows this better than Drac does. But he may soon realize that the ties that bind us are sometimes impossible to explain. They connect us, even after it seems like the ties should be broken. Some bonds defy distance, time, and logic because some ties are simply meant to be.





	1. Morning Routines

For the past six years, Karen had become accustomed to the smell of mildew in her one bedroom apartment. It was the first thing she smelled in the morning when she woke up and the last thing she smelled in the evening when she went to sleep. She had tried getting rid of it with bleach, but every fall it always came back like clockwork. It was like having an obnoxious friend or family member that never paid rent and only came when they needed money.

"Karen... Karen..." It called out to her, like a breeze drifting through the trees. "Karen!"

"Hmmmm...whuh?" Karen mumbled and woke up in disarray, taking in a deep breathe of mildew. Guess that was an actual voice.

"Your alarm's on and won't shut up..." answered a groggy teenage boy, running his hand through his thin, shaggy black hair. Sitting up from a lumpy burgundy loveseat, Karen looked blearily around the room before spying her bedroom down the hall. Oh right. She had fallen asleep on the couch again. She slouched back into the couch with a huff, mildly irritated she had to walk all the way to her room to shut the alarm off. She was so dog-gone tired after last night's late shift at the restaurant, she couldn't even make it into her bed, and now, she was paying for it. That was what her back and neck were screaming at her.

"Thanks, Alex... " Karen yawned and stretched her muscles, trying to relieve the pressure as she popped and cracked her cramped, aching joints. "You can go back to bed, but please get the others up in about thirty minutes, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. I know the drill..." Alex waved off with a grumble, tiredness eminent in his dark grey eyes as he grudgingly wandered back into the bedroom for another thirty minute nap. He practically slept in what he was going to wear the next day, so Karen never had to worry about him getting dressed. He was just irritated that his older sister had woken him up earlier than his alarm. He would forgive her, like he always did.

As the afghans covers and blankets on the couch rolled off her, Karen shivered slightly, already feeling the chill in the room creeping through the walls. Last night, there had been another storm, judging from the damp marks in the ceiling and carpets that were littered with bowls, pots, and pans nearly full of rainwater. She would have to take on an extra shift or ask for some overtime soon if the roof leaked anymore. The last patch job she did on the roof wasn't too bad, but with the cooler fall months coming in, winter was almost upon them, and she would need to save up for a professional roofer, or at least start investing in some new shingles. With a soft sigh, she ran a hand through her soft, dark brown hair, knowing from the ache in her bones that it was going to be another long day before she hoisted herself off the couch to shut off her alarm. She was used to the cold, but she didn't want any of the others getting sick, so she made sure to turn on the space heaters and pointed them near the damp spots.

Trying to rub the grime and sleep out of her eyes, Karen proceeded to dump out the collected water from the pans down the sink before she stumbled towards the bathroom to do her usual routine. After quickly brushing her teeth and tangled hair, she unscrewed her orange medicine container and popped two iron supplements into her mouth before taking a swig from her canteen. She then threw on some of her old sweats and a pair of converse and pulled a black beanie low over her ears. Her earbuds were already playing loud seventies rock music from her mp3 player before she wrapped a green and yellow scarf around her neck and kicked off into another morning bike ride.

Though she wasn't fond of the cold, damp weather, she did love the cool, crisp smell of the autumn air in the morning. It was the only time she honestly ever had to herself, and it really helped to charge her up enough to face a long day of work. Those thirty minutes of peace were what made her feel alive, that it was worth it working the rest of the day. She didn't even mind riding her crummy old bike through the forest fog; she knew the path so well, she could do it blindfolded. Originally, it was just something her doctor recommended she do it to stay healthy and build her endurance, but it started becoming so calming and refreshing that eventually, something as mandatory as exercise, it became enjoyable enough for it to become a part of her usual routine. Besides her diet and medication, it was one of the things that helped make her feel less tired during the day. Of course, the fatigue wasn't her fault, but life didn't always like to be fair. Her situation wasn't ideal but she had to maintain a healthy work ethic in order to pay bills, just like everyone else. It was just something she had to live with.

At the fifteen minute mark, she was nearing the edge of the woods. The dirt path opened up more into a man made asphalt road that lead to the inner part of the village and her favorite local coffee shop, Carpathian Coffee, where she parked her bike for a quick bite to eat. Usually, it was cheaper to buy food from the grocery store and make meals yourself than to having to buy takeout all the time, but she knew one of the owners of the shop and received a lot of their leftovers for free or at a discounted price when business was slow.

"Hey, Karen. Here for your usual morning coffee?" greeted the cashier, who recognized the young woman with a friendly smile. Her long auburn hair was tucked into a messy bun, but still had whips of her bangs sticking out from the undersides of her green visor.

"With extra foam and milk?" Karen always asked, feeling like it was more of a rhetorical question since she had been here so many times.

"And a cinnamon stick," she finished right as she plopped a short brown stick into the coffee cup. "Your drink is so cute and delicious, I'm surprised it's healthy. I'm thinking of calling it 'the Karen.'"

"Mindy, you're a lifesaver," Karen said in exasperation as she took the violet mug from the cashier and slapped down her C.C. members card and $1.20 on the counter.

"Meh, I'm just doin' my job, but hey, if you say so. Just give me the Nobel Prize," Mindy shrugged, sitting down on the stool across from Karen after straightening out her green apron. "So, how are the kids?"

"Fine. Shouldn't you be working?" Karen took a slow sip and eyed her friend from behind her mug before blowing again on the coffee.

"Nah, you're my only customer who comes in around this time of day. You somehow always beat the breakfast rush hour," Mindy shrugged before she leaned on her hand and gave her friend an inquisitive look. "Speaking of which, I haven't had a chance to talk to you since you took on that second job. You hardly sit down to eat anymore."

"Third, actually, and sorry about that. I just started a new job down at Jamey's pub as a waitress, so I don't get a lot of time to myself."

"You're not working at Laymen's anymore?" Mindy asked with feigned surprise. This wasn't the first time Karen had complained to her friend about her toxic work environment. Between the long hours and the belligerent misogyny and sexual harassment, it wasn't a question of if she would quit but _when_ she would quit. The only regret she had in leaving that job was that she would no longer get her employee discount on clothing anymore. It was a shame. They had an excellent kid's department.

"Nope. Had to quit. I couldn't take anymore of Mr. Garibaldi's crap anymore," she mumbled, stirring her coffee with her cinnamon stick suddenly becoming an interesting pastime.

"Isn't that always the problem?" Mindy sighed, having heard this story before.

"Mindy, it wasn't like last time," Karen shot back with an eye roll. "He had his hand on my ass. Repeatedly."

"Well, can you blame him? You've got a nice ass." Karen's eyes shot up at her in wide disgust, slightly flushed in anger and admiration from Mindy's flippant comment, but the cashier continued unfazed. "Kidding. God, Karen, don't take everything so seriously. You know, you could've just filed for sexual harassment with human resources, or you know, sued his ass. I'm sure that would've helped pay off some of your college loans."

"Going through HR is such a hassle, and I didn't want to make a bigger deal of it than it was. Not everyone makes it out of HR unscathed. Beside, you know I can't afford a lawyer right now. I can barely afford to fix the roof!" Karen growled, her voice quickly rising in anger and frustration before she stopped herself from making a scene. "Anyways, it's over now and done with."

"Couldn't you call a super for that?" Mindy suggested, thinking it was time to change the subject. "You live in an apartment complex, right? Your landlord should technically be paying for all that."

"Mr. Tarkowvski says 'if it wasn't there when I bought the place, it's not my problem to fix,'" Karen did with a mock Russian accent. "I don't want to push him too far. He's been generous enough in letting me stay there when he has a no child policy."

"Hmm... well, if that's the case, I'll try and ask around. I might be able to find a handy man who's willing to work for fifty percent less than his asking price."

"Please do."

"Gosh, Karen, you need to catch a break. You've been working way too hard and have to make way too many allowances for people you shouldn't even be associating with. If you want, I could always lend you the money-"

As soon as the words had come out of her mouth, Karen immediately fired back,"And what? Have to owe you again for being short on last months rent money? No thank you."

"At least take a night off," Mindy suggested, trying to get her stubborn friend to see reason. "They give you sick days, right? Just take a mental health day and relax. Go out on a date or something. Do something for you and not for others. Who's going to take care of the kids if you're out there working yourself to death?"

"Well, if you haven't noticed, Mind, I'm not exactly available to date at the moment," Karen finally sighed, not coming up with a better excuse at the moment.

"Oh, _please._ Girl, you can date and you know it. You're a strong, funny, beautiful woman and plenty of men have certainly noticed. You just need to attract the right ones, and let's face it, Karen. You're not exactly the brightest bulb in the bunch when it comes to knowing when a guy is putting the moves on you. If you want guys to stop bugging you, you need to get out there and find someone so that men can stop thinking you're available on the meat market."

" _Really,_ Mindy," Karen said a-matter-of-factly. "My horrible track record for men aside, what man wants to date a college drop-out girl in her late twenties, who hasn't had a decent relationship since high school, and has got five younger siblings to take care of like a single parent? Real jackpot there."

"Oh, you'd be surprised. You could always get Darcie or Rhonda to watch them if you want some alone time. I know they wouldn't mind doing it for free-"

"Mindy, _no_. I told you, I'm not doing it," Karen said adamantly, using her motherly 'and that's final' voice. "If I'm going to be taking a mental health day, it's going to be for emergencies and running errands."

"Well... send my love to the kids, then," the cashier finally gave up, knowing her friend was about as stubborn as a mule when it came to her decisions.

"You got any leftovers I could scrap?" Karen reluctantly asked before Mindy lifted up a stack of plastic containers from the bottom shelf of the display counter.

"Five whole boxes full."

"Thanks, Mindy. Once again, you are a lifesaver," Karen said with a small smile as she lifted and carried two large plastic bags full of goodies. Most places like that had to throw out food that was close to going towards the expiration date, so Karen often got a lot of muffins, box lunches, sandwiches, and cookies for free.

"Just doing my job to make the world a better place. Here! Take a pumpkin scone, on me," Mindy wagged her finger knowingly at Karen. "You know what caffeine does to you when you haven't eaten."

"Oooh pumpkin! Mindy, you spoil me." Karen gave her friend a quick thanks and waved goodbye before she tied the boxes down on the skirt guard and quickly rode home. She pushed some of her stress into her bike pedaling, knowing it wasn't good for her to get worked up like that. While she was used to her routine, Karen hated herself for complaining about her life. She should have really been more thankful and grateful for the things she did have. Laymen's had been a really good job, one that could let her afford buying cheaper school clothes for her family and give her a bit more breathing room with paychecks. She had quit mainly for her pride and mental health, but if things continued on as they did, Karen had a feeling she would be retracting her two weeks notice and be working for _him_ again by the end of the month. Sure, she would grow to loathe it, but it was for the kids, and she would do about anything for her family.

Knowing this, her friend Mindy waited patiently until Karen was out of sight before dialing the green cashier phone on the wall. She listened to a couple of rings before she heard a 'boop' at the other end.

"Becca? It's Mindy. Hey, I know it's early, but something tells me that Karen needs a prescription for a fun night out and soon! What dating site was it that you found Peter on?"

* * *

"Hey guys, are you awake? I bring bacon!" Karen cheered in a sing-song-y voice as she kicked the door shut and placed the bags on the table.

"Really?" her brother Alex blinked, surprised that such a rare meat had come into the house.

"Well... I _think_ so," Karen paused before looking into the bag. "Mostly, it's just eggs, both scrambled and deviled."

"Figures," he rolled his eyes before turning to give her an amused sarcastic look. "So I take it you're with the land of the living now?"

"Yep. I am fully conscious now, especially since I've had my coffee and scone," Karen said with a chipper bounce in her step. "Could you help me unpack breakfast while I put away the leftovers in the fridge? You're always so good about giving everyone equal shares."

"Sure thing," he replied with a shrug before he began separating the meals out. The fifteen year old was in the middle of his freshman year of high school, but he liked to help Karen out when he could. And why wouldn't he? Having a family of six to take care of was a lot of hard work, not to mention he was the oldest after Karen. He was the man of the house, and it was his duty to watch the younger kids when Karen couldn't.

"Hey sis, when's breakfast?" called out another masculine voice.

"Did you make us lunch?" the voice called out again.

_Oh no. They're awake._

"Sack lunches are in the fridge. Breakfast is in process. Just make sure to share the OJ." Karen shut the fridge as she began to unpack the boxes with Alex. Two ten year old boys with black and brown hair peered at the food on the table from both sides of her with hungry blue eyes, eying it like a pair of dogs waiting for scraps to fall off their master's table.

"Did you make mine without mayo?" asked Jesse, the brown haired twin.

"Yes," Karen replied instantly.

"Tomato?"

"Yes.

"Lettuce-?"

" _Yes,_ Jesse," Karen interrupted with a light laugh. "I made it without anything but bread and ham. I have for the past six years!" She laid out two plates of scrambled eggs on the brown, foldout card table. "Here you go, boys! The breakfast of champions: leftover scrambled eggs with cheese."

She had barely said anything before the twins began inhaling their meals with invigorated gusto already digging into the bistro box filled to the brim with fruits, veggies, and deviled eggs. If their hair weren't slightly different shades of color, most people wouldn't be able to tell them apart, though that hardly stopped anyone from confusing them. They looked, acted, and talked the same, but their interests were really what set them apart.

Aside from his sandwiches, Jesse would have likely eaten anything put in front of his face, which made him really popular on the playground when other little boys dared him to eat a variety of disgusting things. He never backed down from a challenge and used that stubborn zeal to fuel his extreme enthusiasm for sports, being an absolute sucker for competition and any activity that involved running and dirt. Jack, on the other hand, was a bit of a special snowflake.

"Jack! What are you doing?! I just washed that shirt," Karen scolded as the black haired boy had taken off and purposely poured orange juice all over his grey alien shirt.

"I just wanted to see if I could filter out the pulp with my t-shirt," Jack explained, trying to wipe off the pulp with little success before Karen sighed and pulled out a paper towel off the rack.

"If you didn't like the pulp, you could have just told me so beforehand so I could have removed it for you," she sighed, not having much success in getting the sticky orange juice out of it, even with a wet paper towel. "Go change into a new shirt. I'll add this to the next round of clothes for my trip to the laundromat tomorrow."

"But this is my lucky shirt," Jack whined with a pout. "It keeps away the monsters and aliens away." Paranoid, science crazy, and a supernatural nut. Karen was so blessed to have this bundle of joy as a little brother.

"You should have thought about that before you decided to spill orange juice all over your nice, clean shirt," Karen finished thoughtfully, using her height to her advantage as she tugged the grey alien t-shirt out of her little brother's reach, the latter letting out a squeal in defiant protest.

"Jack, if you really are worried about creatures coming near you, you can borrow some of dad's old junk. That stuff is guaranteed to ward off pretty much anything," Alex suggested, causing Jack's eyes to shine brightly in excitement.

"Cool! Thanks, Alex," Jack cheered, causing his brother Jesse to look over from his eggs in anticipation.

"Bet I can beat you to the room," Jesse challenged before both of the boys shot off towards their room like hyperactive bottle rockets. As Karen tossed the shirt into the laundry bin, she decided to be grateful this was all she had to complain about. Ever since she had made the mistake of giving Jack his toy chemistry set, Karen had to have the fire department on speed dial. Whoever had said ages ten and up were worthy of a chemistry set was clearly mistaken. Jesse was trouble in a different way. He got riled up really easy, being the most competitive of the twins, and by doing so, got Jack riled up as well. They both had some sort of twin telepathy Karen had yet to understand, and they loved to exploit it against her when they wouldn't get their way.

"No rough housing!" Karen yelled down the hall. "I don't need child services poking their nose around here because you two look like you had gotten beaten up." Part of her was joking when she had said that, but the other half of her was seriously considering it as a worry. Her family's circumstances were a bit... sketchy, to say the least, but they got by. To anyone of the outside world, they were just fine, and she intended to keep it that way. After checking to make sure the twins hadn't broken anything, she peeked into the kid's bedroom.

"Quincy, Lucy, breakfast is ready," she announced to the rest of her siblings, who were putting on the last of their school clothes. Lucy, an adorable little girl of five with all of her baby teeth intact, was putting up some of her short chestnut hair into a side ponytail on top right side of her head with a pink bead hair-tie, while her seven year old brother Quincy was rustling around for something out of his green dinosaur backpack.

"Yay!" squealed Lucy as she quickly forgot her goal to get ready and ran towards the kitchen before Karen caught her in the doorway.

"Whoa, whoa, where are you going, little doodlebug?" Karen asked, calling her by a nickname she had picked up after her love of ladybugs and an unfortunate incident involving lipstick and the bathroom wall.

"To get some breakfast," Lucy replied with a grin, oblivious to the fact that she had her ladybug dress tucked into her underwear.

"Not without your dress on. You have it tucked into your underwear, silly," Karen chuckled before she fixed Lucy's snafu. "There. Much better." Lucy said a polite 'thank you' before she ran towards the table again and hopped on top of one of the chairs. She felt a smile creep on her face as Alex helped Lucy pour her orange juice, Alex having a bit of a soft spot for Lucy as well, before she felt a tug on her pant leg draw her attention.

"Whatcha got there, Quincy?" Karen asked her youngest brother, who pulled out a crumpled piece of paper from his backpack.

"You need to sign this. I can't fake mommy's signature like you do," he mumbled as Karen took the paper from him. Though he held out the paper, he looked extremely reluctant and guilty in giving it to her, which set off Karen's mom sense almost immediately.

"What is it?"

"The usual parent PTA sheets and stuff," he said, shuffling his feet a bit before scratching his fuzzy, sand-colored hair.

" _Uh huh._ What's the 'and stuff?'" Karen asked knowingly, raising her eyebrow at him as his green eyes avoided looking directly into her suspicious bronze colored gaze.

"They... want a parent teacher conference," he admitted, changing Karen's look into one of shock and panic.

"What? Why? What did you do?" Karen gasped in shock, her face quickly turning dark.

"Nothing, nothing," he waved defensively. "It's just... they might mention something about... me putting a frog in Joey's egg salad sandwich."

"Quinton Morris Belmont, you should know better!"

"But he was picking on Lucy by putting a frog in her face, so I thought I'd put a frog in his face!" Quincy defended. When it came to Lucy, Quincy was very protective of her, since she was the baby of the family and was the one closest to his age. Though she was usually pretty understanding of this fact, Karen was fairly upset at the repercussions at what Quincy had done might have on her little patchwork family. In any other normal household, it might have been a minor annoyance for them to be called in for a parent-teacher conference, but the Belmonts were hardly a normal household. Karen was already anticipating breaking out into a cold sweat while she lied directly into the teacher's face, watching her patchwork family slowly pulling apart until it was bursting at the seams in front of her very eyes, but then she remembered what her mother Marie had always said about how in the end, family was all that you had. Slowly, she felt her glare turn into a slight scowl.

"A frog? Seriously, Quincy, I've taught you better than that," Karen scolded, the seven year old looking down shamefully at his feet. "If you want to get away with something like revenge, spit in the guy's food, don't put a frog in it. The revenge is so much sweeter when you have the satisfaction of knowing something he doesn't, plus, think of the frog! I don't think he'd want to be put in an egg salad sandwich, do you?"

"No..." Quincy blinked, surprised that he wasn't being punished. "So you're...you're not mad?"

"Why should I be mad? All you did was protect your little sister. We look out for our own in this family. Anyone who doesn't is scum." A look of confusion flushed over him before a mischievous smile grew on his face as Karen leaned in and put her hands on her knees. "So... did he freak out?"

"Yes," he grinned deviously.

"Nice one, Quincy," she said, giving her seven year old brother a slight head scruff.

"You are the worst mom ever," Alex deadpanned before breaking out into a small smile.

"Yeah, but at least I'm a cool mom," Karen replied with a lopsided grin as she signed the paper and gave it back to Quincy before her face turned grave as she bent down towards him at eye level. "But seriously, Q-tee, if someone's bothering your sister, you should tell me or a teacher about it. I can't keep calling on Darcie's mom every time you kids get into trouble."

"But Rhonda loves us," Quincy replied.

"Yes, but she's got a business to run and a daughter in community college," Karen began before Jesse came into grab his basketball backpack.

"Some business. All she does is read fortunes and cut hair from the back of her smelly old trailer," Jesse interjected with a frown.

"Excuse me, but I don't remember you having any complaints when she gave you a ride from soccer practice or when she gave you a discount on a haircut," Karen frowned, not liking how Jesse's tone but quickly found herself letting it go, feeling like she was going off on a separate tangent. "The point is, you guys need to stop getting into trouble. If someone would find us and call someone, they would separate all of us, do you understand?" She took the awkward silence and the slow nods from most of the kids as a 'yes.'

"Good. Now, group hug," Karen said opening up her arms.

"Awww..." some of the older boys grumbled.

"Come _on_. Group hug," she gestured again as the boys ruefully joined in anyways, secretly enjoying the embrace before almost knocking over the twenty seven year old when Lucy joined in in excitement.

"I love you guys," Karen smiled warmly as she squished them together before letting go. "Now hurry up and finish up and be ready for the bus! Quincy, go help your sister tie her shoes. She still can't get the bunny knots right. Alex, make sure everyone gets on their separate buses and that Jesse and Jack don't forget their homework. They spent most of the night wracking their whole brains to finish it. I have to call Mrs. Varkalov and see if she can come in for that parent teacher conference. After that, I need to jump in for a quick shower before our neighbor Mr. Buttaki wakes up and uses up all the hot water again."

As soon as she stated her orders, everyone began doing their set tasks as Karen began quickly dialing Rhonda's number. Yep. When pulled together, the Belmonts were a quite the patchwork family, and for now, they seemed to hold together pretty well.


	2. Midday Routines

The sun was just starting to dip into the back of the Carpathian mountains. The tops were peaked with snow, even in late September, and established a certain ambiance with the old castle that sat amidst the mountain forest and fog, a juxtaposition of beauty and eeriness. All was peaceful when suddenly a groaning cry of an organ echoed loudly inside the ancient grounds of what should have been an abandoned castle. At least, that was what the locals had said. Inside the castle, a black mahogany coffin gradually opened with a long, screeching creak before an ominous figure stiffly raised itself out of its resting place. Their arms were crossed over their chest in a macabre fashion before a pair of icy blue eyes shot open from the disturbance.

"Okay, who is playing the organ at five in the afternoon?!" the vampire growled at no one in particular before wincing in pain. The castle wasn't the only thing getting older in years. Even his coffin had grown more creaky and uncomfortable. He had to replace it every couple decades, like humans did with their mattresses, and since coffins weren't exactly meant to last for those that weren't dead -or undead, in this case. He would have to phone his morgue guy and place in a new order to help construct a brand new one while he was occupied by his managerial duties. Hotels don't just run themselves, you know.

Without warning, the door swung open with a shrunken head hanging on the door handle clearly yelling, 'Do not disturb!' a couple seconds too late, revealing a suit of armor standing outside of the doorway. "Sir, there's an emergency!" alerted the enchanted knight.

"Yes, yes, I know. I heard. Let him in, Zecora," Dracula sighed irritably as the shrunken head moved out of the way for the knight, which promptly marched in. "What is it?" That question was quickly answered as a small pack of werepuppies bounded down the hallway in a massive swarm of claws, fur, and teeth, knocking over some of the hotel's iron knights and any unlucky hotel guest who happened to be in the way.

"The wolf pups are disturbing the guests again and have chewed through most of the furniture."

"Wonderful," the vampire grumbled sarcastically, trying to rub out the oncoming migraine he was getting. "Just make sure they don't break anything else, and get Brunhilde to do damage control. Send any disturbed hotel guest a complimentary gift basket and a coupon for the spa. I'll be right down."

"Yes, sir!" The knight gave his master a quick salute before dashing out of the room with a platoon of knights to prevent one of pups from gnawing on a table leg. His friend Wayne the Wolfman and his wife Wanda had moved into the hotel last week due to Wayne being let go from his last job as a pet store manager, and being the good friend that he was, Drac had offered him a job as a tennis instructor and helped his family relocate to one of his hotel's larger suites. Unfortunately, taking on an entire werewolf pack had been a bit more of a challenge than Drac had expected. It wasn't anything he couldn't handle though. He just needed to get some fresh blood into his system and then he would be his usual, horrifying self.

 _ _Wayne really needs to learn how to control his kids._ Oh well. Boys will be boys,_ Dracula thought before he felt his spine stiffen and creak in discomfort, sharply stuck in an awkward angle that made him unable to straighten it.

"Zecora, remind me to call Morty at Postmortem Morgue for a new coffin."

"What do you think I am? A phone? A personal planner? Lassie?" the shrunken head argued with her usual dose of sass. Drac frowned, wondering why he kept such unpleasant company, and abruptly shut the door, hearing the bump and sudden shriek he heard from the shrunken head hitting the door before he slouched towards the bathroom. In that one moment, Drac had the sudden mixed feeling of sympathy and admiration for his former chef Quasimodo Wilson for living with a chronic hunched back. He was almost sorry that he had to let him go. Then he remembered that the hunchback had tried to cook hotel guests into stew without the Count's permission or knowledge, and the warm feeling was gone. It was a shame. He really did make the best coffin cakes and deviled lizard fingers.

Staring at his lack of reflection, Drac didn't need a mirror to know he felt horrible. He opened the mirror's medicine cabinet, looking over the various razors, shaving cream, and other usual bathroom brick-a-brack before he spied a box of blood beaters and pulled out a silver packet that resembled a blood bag and shook the contents. Only a few bags left. He was starting to run out. He'd have to remember to order a new prescription for them later. Snapping off the cap, he quickly sunk his fangs into the package indents and sucked down the crimson liquid like a cherry Slurpee, the pain in his back ebbing away almost instantly before he threw it into a black waste basket filled with similarly drained packets.

He began brushing his fangs while he used his psychic powers to comb and gel his hair. He didn't know why he needed a mirror, being that he couldn't see his own reflection, but it did help him figure out where to "float" the comb. After washing up, Dracula donned his usual cape and black tuxedo and went on about his usual business. He received many 'good evenings' from the monster staff and guests that were up at this early hour as he went through his organized mental checklist of duties he had. It helped distract him from the emptiness he felt inside since his daughter had left.

Witch maids were flying overhead, dusting the rafters and chandeliers, while some of the zombie staff were moving out the monster guests' luggage for those who were checking out. Business was usually slow during daylight hours, but it picked up a lot after dark, so preparations had to be made for the evening rush.

 _An hour until sundown. More guests will be coming soon,_ Dracula thought as he paced impatiently in the lobby, looking for any jobs he might have to oversee. After making sure everything was in tip-top shape, he settled into relieving Augustus from the front desk from his daytime shift until his zombie brother Horace took over for the night shift, who was always thirty minutes late to work. Believe it or not, they were the fastest zombies he had on-staff.

Drac tapped his long fingernails on the counter and, after waiting for what felt like an eternity, one of his security knights clanked over towards him.

"Sir, we've received a package for you."

"Excellent. Is it the one I ordered from express mail?"

"Yes, sir. The harpies just delivered it." He looked over and saw a group of gnarled and feathered women gasp and pant as they lifted a bunch of cardboard boxes onto the red carpet floor before flopping down on top of the package with bits of loose feathers still falling through the air.

"Great! Make sure no one touches that package but me. I'll see to it personally. We wouldn't like to lose it like we lost the others."

"Yes, sir!"

"Anything else in the mail?" the Count asked hopefully.

"No, sir."

"Oh..." He tried to not sound disappointed. It had been about a year since Johnny and Mavis had left to travel the world. Every now and then, the Count would get a phone call when they had cell service or a postcard in the mail from some strange new place they had been to, talking about what adventures they'd had this time. He arranged all of the postcards they sent into a scrapbook he kept on top of the vanity chest in Mavis's bedroom, a room that he almost treated like a shrine since she had been gone with everything exactly where she had left it. In Dracula's most recent postcard, a holographic picture of the Greek Pantheon, he heard that his Mavey-Wavey was planning to come back home in a matter of weeks, so he was anxiously waiting for her reply.

"Very well. You are dismissed." The hollow knight saluted before he clanked away back to his post. Walking down the crimson carpeted staircase, the vampire strolled over towards the edge of the lobby and signed off for the packages and thanked the delivery harpies before picking up the heavy cardboard boxes that had the word "Dell" printed on it with little to no effort, thanks to his vampire strength.

His hotel was in the awkward process of updating its technology, since they were planning to reopen the hotel for both monsters and humans in time for the hotel's one hundred and fifteenth anniversary. Needless to say, it required a lot of work. This was the third computer they had gone through, since zombies weren't the most graceful of monsters, which made handling expensive technology a blood-sport. That was his mistake, but this time Drac was personally going to work on it, if it was the last thing he'd do.

Not wanting to be interrupted, he vanished into a purple mist with the swish of his cape and set it down behind the counter. A quick gesture of hand movements that almost blurred together and the package was open in seconds with the monitor plucked out and set down on the counter. "Are they normally supposed to be this big?" he thought to himself as he read through the instruction manual. After the third page of warnings, information, and warranties with three different languages, he decided to just jump headlong into it. On paper, the diagrams appeared simple enough to any normal person, but to Dracula it might as well have been an instruction set for Swedish furniture. By the time he had turned on the computer and plugged most of the cords in, the phone was ringing and he was tangled up in a bunch of wires, stuck in front of a slow loading screen with a spinning hourglass.

Grabbing the handle of the black, French-styled rotary phone, he regained his composure and answered with his most professional tone, "Hello, this is Hotel Transylvania, the safest destination that specializes in getaways for ghosts, goblins, and other ghoulish monsters. How may I help you?"

 _"Hey Drac, buddy! How's it going?"_ a friendly and familiar voice greeted him cheerfully over the phone.

"Frankie, my boy, how are you? How's the wife?"

_"She's good, I'm good. We just got sorted into the Transylvanian mail, and I'm just calling to confirm our reservations and a tandem massage for 9 pm. You know how cranky Eunice gets after traveling by snail mail. Always ends up with box cramps."_

"Good, good-wait. If you're in the mail, how are you talking to me right now?"

 _"It's something called a 'sell phone'. Johnny got it for me. It's like a wireless telephone that you can take with you everywhere. You can download and listen to music, create a calender, and do about a million other things on it."_ By the sound of his voice, Frankie seemed absolutely ecstatic about this new piece of technology and appeared pretty knowledgeable about it. This fact gave Dracula the strangest sense of ennui and frustration. _"Anyways, we should be arriving at your hotel in a couple hours, give or take for standard shipping."_

Then Dracula overheard a shrill, muffled voice in the background shout, _"That's because Mister Cheap-bolts didn't want to shell out five extra dollars for Two-Day shipping!"_

 _"Because it's a total rip-off, Eunie!"_ he heard Frank yell. _"I already told you that you pay more than you save when you subscribe to these people."_

 _"That's not what you told me when you express-shipped the season one box set of_ the Walking Dead."

 _"It was a good deal, okay!?"_ The squabble continued on like this for a few more minutes until the hotel manager was distracted by the large approaching footsteps thumping and shaking the ground around him. Then it stopped and was replaced by a tall, dark shadow loomed ominously over him, blocking most of the lantern light.

"Frank, hang on for a second- I have something I need to take care of," Drac quickly whispered into the phone, finding himself staring up at a two hundred foot tall lizard before he placed his hand on the mouth piece and bellowed, "Good evening, Godzilla-sama! I take it you're here for this year's annual Kaiju conference?"

"RWAAAAAAAAR!" the giant reptile screeched with an almost metallic roar which rattled the entire lobby.

"Yes, yes, the conference room is all reserved for you and your coworkers. Unfortunately, your suite isn't quite ready yet."

"GRAAWWW!" The kaiju impatiently stomped his foot for effect, which probably would have been tapping if he was about a hundred and ninety feet shorter.

"Y-Yes, I know you came all the way from Hiroshima, Godzilla-sama, but housekeeping hasn't quite finished making up the room to your specifications, but it should be done in about a half hour. While you're waiting, please do check out our gargoyle courtyard and spa. Ask for Matilda. She'll give you a complimentary algae scale scrubbing, on the house. Really helps with the molting and athlete's foot."

"Grawwwrrr..." the monster grumbled before bowing and walking away.

"You're welcome, sir." Dracula gave him a polite bow in kind before he resumed his phone call. "Listen, Frankie, I have to go, but I'll see you when you get here, and tell the wife I said 'hello.'"

 _"Tell him I said 'hi'!"_ Eunice shouted back, causing the Count to hold the phone away from his ear.

 _"She says 'hi',"_ said Frank with dull enthusiasm.

"I heard. Look, I'll see you real soon."

 _"Not soon enough..."_ he heard Eunice grumble.

 _"You-!"_ Frank began and then the line went dead. It was then that the computer finally started stopped loading.

"Finally!" Drac exclaimed in relief before going back to the directions. "Now it says to click using the-" Suddenly, the sound of a phone being dialed and a shrill warble blasted out of the computer speakers.

"Holy rabies!" he exclaimed with a start before fearfully ducking behind the counter. The monitor continued to let out a loud warble of electronic noises and hissed that grated on his sensitive ears for almost thirty seconds before it went dead silent. Peeking up from the counter, he saw that a Windows background was loaded up with many different icons in the corner of the screen. "That's it? Now what?" He tried touching the screen with his finger, hitting a bunch of the keys on the keyboard, but nothing happened. "It's supposed to be working. Why isn't it working?" He referred back to the instructions.

"'Use mouse to click on monitor screen,'" he read aloud. "Okay, mouse... mouse... Where is the mouse? Why would you need a mouse?" He checked the box for a small mouse, but he couldn't find any vermin anywhere. Using his clairvoyance, he saw through the other boxes and noticed they didn't have any rodents in them either. What kind of service would promise mice and never give you any? He'd had plenty of stuff delivered to the hotel before and they always had a mouse or two stuffed into ungodly amount of packing peanut filled boxes when he had never asked for one, but the one time he needed a mouse, there wasn't a rodent to be found. "I guess they must be a bought separately." He sighed, thinking he had to go and order from the catalog again before he spied a wild mouse scampering near one of the broom closets across the room.

Drac gave it a clever, devious smirk as he faded into a cloud of blue and purple mist that shrunk and spiraled towards the ground. Stepping out from behind the counter on all fours, he reappearing as a newly transformed, mangy black cat with bright red eyes. As he crept and stretched across the floor, he realized it had been awhile since he had transformed into a cat. Most of the time, he got around as a bat or a large wolf or an Irish wolfhound if he was feeling ambitious -there had even been one boy's night out where he had gotten drunk and transformed into a snake- but he hardly ever turned into a cat, and the last time that he had was when he was teaching his daughter to hunt mice and scorpions. If anything, she favored the feline form over him, but here, in this moment, it felt very appropriate.

His smirk extended into a Cheshire grin as he quietly stalked the mouse, hiding behind candelabras, rolling luggage carts, and hugging the wall. It wasn't until he was about a couple feet away that the mouse saw him, and then the chase was on! Using his cat-like reflexes and five hundred years of experience chasing mice, he easily predicted were the mouse would run as he would dart and cut off any escape attempts. His cat claws extended towards the mouse when it was within hair's length before catching it by the tail. The mouse let out a series of panicked squeaks as he slapped his other paw on top of his prey to keep it from moving. He leaned in to grab with his mouth and drain the life out of it before he had to restrain himself from repeating century old habits. Fortunately, he didn't have to. The luggage that ran over his tail did that for him.

He let out a cat-like screech and hissed, turning to glare at the guest that had rolled their suitcase over his tail before he caught the sudden whiff of wolf stench in the air. Then he turned his head and locked eyes with a group of eager werewolf pups eying eagerly him from across the lobby before they launched forward at breakneck speeds. Not having enough time to think, Drac carefully picked up the mouse with his mouth and instinctively bolted across the cobblestone floor, jumping onto furniture, fireplace mantles, through luggage carts and darting between the legs of skeletons and monsters alike. Werewolves were fast, but thankfully vampires were faster, even as transformed animals. A couple of sharp maneuvers later, and Dracula had given them the slip.

Right when he thought he was safe, a larger werewolf gunned for him and bit him on the tail. Dracula let out a loud howl in a pain, finally losing his concentration and unexpectedly transforming back into his vampiric form. With a dark frown, he lifted up his cape and found his friend Wayne chewing at the end.

"Whoops, sorry about that, Drac. My bad. My nose isn't... what it... used to be." The vampire spoke not a word, but the dark glare he gave his friend said a lot, and if Wayne had had a tail, it would have been curled between his legs. The wolfman gulped before laughing nervously. "I'll just go and... get the kids."

"Sure. You do that," Drac frowned as he watched his friend stumble and trip backwards before returning to the front desk. He held up the mouse he had held behind his back by the tail before squeezing it with his other hand and setting it down on the counter to keep it from escaping.

"Okay, now I just attach this and-" he began lifting up the end of the mouse's tail and motioning it towards one of the computer outlets before he was interrupted by another phone call. Dracula huffed angrily, having no more patience for shenanigans, and put down the mouse and picked up the line and passive aggressively delivered the hotel's introduction. However, who answered back made all of his anger melt away almost instantaneously.

_"Dad? Is that you?"_

"Mavis! How are you? How's the world? Are you eating enough spiders?" Drac beamed, suddenly feeling like he was going a thousand miles per hour as all the questions he wanted to ask bubbled to the surface. "You know they're good for you and high in protein."

_"It's great, Dad! I've seen and rode the London Eye! I even went to go see the Tower of London. You would love some of the torture chambers they have there. It made me a little homesick."_

"Well, good. It's about time for you to come home. Somebody has a special birthday coming up."

_"Dad, I've spent, like, every birthday I've ever had in that hotel."_

"I know. It's such a tradition! You should see what I've got planned on the itinerary this year."

 _"Yeah, see about that,"_ Mavis began almost hesitantly. _"I was hoping for something a little... different this year."_

"Don't worry! I asked for a few suggestions from Johnny before planning it so we can keep it hip and cool. Hugo, our sous chef, is making some human food for you this year, something called 'french fries,' and there's going to be some arcade video games brought in, and I even managed to book that one new band you like: Smashed Pumpkins."

_"You mean Smashing Pumpkins?"_

"That too."

 _"That's umm... that's great, Dad, but actually, here's the thing: I'm not coming home for my birthday."_ That's when Dracula's blood ran cold- well, colder than usual.

"W-What?"

_"We're going to be spending my birthday in Paris. Johnny's got the whole thing planned. We're going to be staying at the old Paris Opera House where your old friend Erik lives, and then we're going checkout the Lourve and Parisian catacombs before going up to see the top of the Eiffel Tower. It's going to be so romantic!"_

"Oh..? Y-Yes... Romantic. Great," Drac feigned a happy tone, trying not show any sarcasm or disappointment in his voice. His daughter was a hundred and eighteen. He needed to accept that she was growing up and needed her space to explore her independence. He had to show that he trusted her and supported her decisions, otherwise she would never come back home. "Well... if that's what you really want, then-"

_"Yes! Holy rabies, I'm so glad you're onboard! Thank you so much, Dad! I'll see you in a few weeks! Love you! Bye!"_

"Goodbye, my sweet-" he smiled weakly before he was cut off, his smile now slipping into a sad frown. "-little, blood orange... Be safe." He put the phone back and let his hands rest somberly at his sides. He barely noticed that the mouse he caught earlier was scampering away across the counter. The only thing he did notice was the low groan at the front of the desk that alerted him that Horace was here for his shift. He stepped aside, letting the zombie clock in for his job and just stood in front of the desk, unable to know what to do with himself. One of the witches, Griselda, chose this as an ideal time to fly down from the ceiling rafters on her broomstick with a two white napkins in-hand and ask him for his opinion on party cloths.

"Good evening, your imminence! We have the tablecloths all ready for Mavis's birthday party. We just need you to pick a color. Which would you like to use: eggshell or ecru?" She beamed a cheerful blush and lifted up the two cloth napkins that appeared almost identical in color. Dracula barely registered her, not even looking up from the floor before he mumbled, "whatever..."and uncharacteristically walked away. The witch just floated there, dumbfounded at her boss's lack of enthusiasm. That sudden display of unusual behavior even caught the eye of his friend Wayne, who had just finished rounding up all his youngsters that were running rampant in the lobby into his arms, which was not an easy task.

Wayne reshuffled some of the kids squirming in his arms and watched his friend walk away, who appeared so caught up in his own little world that he didn't even bothering to move out of the way of incoming guests like Blobby when he had moved directly into the vampire's path. The Count just bounced harmlessly off of the blob monster's gelatinous form before continuing slowly towards the elevators, unfazed by the substantial amount of slime that now coated his suit and cape. The blob gurgled angrily at him before continuing to spread his slimy trail on the carpet.

"What's with him?" Wayne asked Blobby. The green, gelatinous blob gurgled with a non-committal shrug and continued on his way.


	3. Midnight Rendezvous

When Johnny came back with the crepes, he saw that Mavis had just finished an animated conversation with her dad. Her eyes always sparkled when she got excited, almost as brightly as her smile. He took this as good news. "So how was your phone call with your dad? Was he mad? Did he threaten to suck my blood?"

"No. Actually, he took it really well," Mavis shrugged and traded him back his cellphone for the strawberry crepe he had bought her. She took a bite out the pastry and hummed happily before sucking out all the filling like a snow-cone. "Mmm so good..."

"Really? Well, great!" Johnny grinned with a carefree attitude. A part of him melted a little when he saw Mavis tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. Her hair was getting a bit longer since they had been traveling, now reaching well past her shoulders, but Johnny loved that she still had the habit of tucking her hair behind her ear. She always did it when she was shy or self-conscious. He just loved her, really. That's why he was going to make sure today went perfect. "So, what do you want to see first?"

"We saw a monster thing in the last country we were in, so let's go do a human thing. I want to see something you've been to."

"Awesome! Okay, well the is the closest is the Louvre, so how about we go check it out first? There's so much stuff there, even I haven't seen it all, plus, it has the best gift shop." He then led her to the bus stop and deposited their bus fair, cramming together with all the other tourists visiting. Mavis tilted her sunhat so that it faced towards the window and let out a wide yawn, slightly exposing her white fangs. With all the traveling they had been doing, going through all the different time-zones and trying to work with different sleep schedules, Mavis had gotten up earlier than she usually did to see all the "human-y stuff" as she put it. It was unfortunate that most of the human stuff she wanted to do shut down after 9 pm. Her Gothic parasol and sunhat had been her ticket of getting through most of the daylight hours, along with some strong SPF 100 sunscreen, but Johnny had picked Paris specifically because not only was it the most romantic city in the world, but it was one of the few cities that was seen best in the evenings and had the greatest nightlife.

After managing to squish past a plump middle aged woman and her sweaty husband, the couple made their way off the bus and stood in front of a thinning crowd at the Louvre entrance. The actual building was the large palace behind the large glass pyramid, but the entrance was gorgeous none the less. It sparkled in the evening sun, reminding Johnny of a Pink Floyd album his dad bought in the seventies that he found stashed away in the basement with the record player and exercise equipment.

"So cool! It's like the pyramids in Egypt!" Mavis gushed in wonder and excitement through her sunglasses. "I bet Uncle Murray would love this."

"If you think that's cool, you should see what their Egyptian section looks like. It looks almost exactly like his living room."

"Let's go see that first then."

"Cool! Let's just get the headsets for the audio tour. Nothing in here is translated into English," Johnny said before fishing his wallet out of his back pocket and handed ten euro to the receptionist. "Two, _s'il vous plaît._ " The woman then pointed to the bin next to her that was filled with headphones connected to something that looked like a battery pack that attached to your hip like a belt clip.

One of the conditions Drac had given the young couple was to look up some of his monster friends if they were in the neighborhood. He had arranged places for them to stay through some of his network connections, probably to help keep an eye on them overseas and make sure his daughter was safe and in good company, but Johnny didn't mind. Even though he had already been to many of the countries they visited, it was fun seeing them with a fresh pair of eyes by finding all of the monster hangouts that weren't on the human tours. Staying inside of a real pyramid was definitely one of Johnny's high points of his life, although the extra security measures caused some issues when Murray couldn't find the keys to his crypt and they suddenly had to reenact a scene Johnny could swear came straight out of an Indiana Jones movie.

However, when they made it to the section containing most of the Egyptian artifacts, it was blocked by a gold stanchion and chains with a sign. Johnny didn't need to understand French to know what that sign said: Exhibit Closed.

"Aww, looks like its closed."

"That's okay. I'm just excited to be here. Look at all this stuff!" Mavis beamed, flitting quickly around the room to take in all the different paintings and artwork. "And look! They have humans and monsters together in this one. I bet it was a real challenge getting all those monsters to hold still for that painting."

"Yeah... I guess." He didn't have the heart to tell her that they were most likely the artist's interpretation than a still-life, but it was a nice thought to think that there was a time where monsters and humans co-existed. "So I've been meaning to ask, but where did you get all the paintings done for your hotel?"

"Oh my dad painted them."

"Drac paints?"

"Oh yeah! I mean, the ones with my dad and I were commissioned by a monster he knew in college, but my dad loves to paint in his spare time, when he's not so busy with the hotel. He's really good with oil and turpentine." Johnny always figured Drac had those portraits commissioned for him, but not all of them were self-portraits. Guess living for a couple centuries you were bound to pick up a couple of hobbies. It only took ten thousand hours for someone to get good at something -that was how long it took for Johnny to become the Culver City hacky-sack champion of 2010- so it was only natural for an immortal being to have some mad skills.

The more he watched his girlfriend look at the exhibits, the more warm he felt with each smile and the more the engagement ring he had hidden burned a hole in his pocket. He could always just stick with the plan and propose to her at the Eiffel Tower, but would it be too cliche? Mavis had been away from human society for a hundred and eighteen years. She probably didn't know that thousands of other people had proposed at the Eiffel Tower. Still, would it be too obvious if he did it there?

Johnny bit his lower lip and sighed. He didn't know why he was suddenly so anxious about this. Normally, he was pretty chill with going with the flow, but most people kind of regarded the whole engagement thing as one of the most important decisions of their life. Mavis would probably be telling this story for years to come, and he wanted to make it really special for her. He just needed to wait for the right moment.

"You ever thought about moving out and getting your own place?" he mentioned casually after they had passed through the Denon wing of the museum.

"I don't know... I've never really thought about it," Mavis pondered for a moment, crossing her arms thoughtfully. "I always thought I would travel and go to new places and experience new things, but I never really thought about what comes after. I mean, I grew up in my dad's hotel for over a century. I just kind of figured that once he retired, I would eventually inherit the business and that would be it."

"Not even if you got married?"

"I didn't have a lot of friends my age growing up, so I never really thought of marriage as a prospect. Most people just always thought of me as 'Dracula's daughter,' so they either kissed up to me or thought I was too good for them," she rubbed her arms slightly before her eyes brightened. "Oh! I did briefly have a crush on a gargoyle named Rook who waited tables for our hotel restaurant Hunchbacks when I was ninety three, but I think that might have been because he always snuck me sweets from the kitchen."

"Oh... Cool."

"You know, that might explain why I didn't see him after that. I think he got fired."

"Oh really? Well... maybe, it wasn't the right moment for you to be worrying about marriage." This was it! This had to be the moment. Don't blow it now, Jonathan! Just play it cool, like you usually do. "Maybe now-"

"Mom?" Johnny turned and saw that Mavis was no longer standing beside him, but was standing in front of a small oil painting portrait protected by plexiglass of a woman smiling that looked very familiar.

"Wait, your _mom_ is the lady painted in the Mona Lisa?!" Johnny exclaimed in disbelief, though the more he looked at it, the more he saw the similarities to Lady Lubov. "That is _so_ cool!"

"Who's Mona Lisa?"

"That's the name of the painting. It was done by this famous guy called Leonardo da Vinci. It's, like, the most famous painting ever. It's on everything! Movies, benches, coffee mugs, you name it."

"How is that possible? I thought humans didn't have any contact with monsters. Why is there a painting of my mom in a human museum?" Mavis's hand reached out lovingly towards the frame, which suddenly set off a bunch of alarms with the guard walking past.

" _Imbécile!_ Do not touch the art!" The guard yelled in broken English.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to!" Mavis apologized before the guard muttered " _touristes stupides_ ," and walked off. Judging from her expression, Johnny figured Mavis probably wasn't in the mood for a big marriage talk. The moment was gone.

* * *

After buying a Mona Lisa mug for Mavis, a Louvre glass pyramid postcard for Drac, and a key-chain for his folks, Johnny thought it was better to switch locations. Clearly, the Louvre had been the wrong way to go. After all, who would want to be proposed to in a museum, especially if you found out that said museum also they had a picture of your dead mother on display for all the world to see? Not exactly a great stage to set up a romantic proposal. Now he was changing into his Johnny-stein costume and getting ready to go to the Parisian catacombs. Maybe something more monster related would help her feel better and create a better mood for him to propose.

The plan was for him to take Mavis to the L'Oiseau Rare, a secret, monster cabaret in the Parisian catacombs that Erik Dresser had recommended, to have dinner and eventually move onto their final destination, the Eiffel Tower. Thirty minutes after they had walked the human tour and posed with a couple of dead bodies, they began to backtrack and search for the special skull that would lead them to a secret tunnel that would take them to the cabaret. Only monsters could find it. Apparently, it was the only skull that actually belonged to a skeleton monster instead of a human. To Johnny, it looked like any other human skull, but monsters knew the difference and that was all that mattered in the end.

Mavis used her vision to look around before stopping at a locked gate. Shifting into her bat form, she shimmied through the bars and popped out on the other side where the lock was. Using the thumb of her right wing, she picked at the lock and listened with her sensitive bat ears

"Oh man, we could get into so much trouble if we get caught," Johnny nervously bounced in anxious anticipation. He wasn't sure what the laws were like in France, but trespassing and vandalizing a historically significant site was probably a big one. "Are you sure we can't use your hypno eyes like your dad?"

"No, Johnny, I already told you I'm not old enough to have hypnotic powers. I won't get them until I'm two hundred and fifty," she spoke conversationally as she waited for the tumblers to shift before a soft click could be heard and the lock was undone.

"Really? I think you're plenty hypnotizing to me," Johnny complimented.

"Aww, you're sweet," her fangs gleamed before she transformed back into a vampire and opened the door. "Now get in before anyone sees us." She started quickly shoving him down the hall until she saw the correct skull and knocked on top of it, which let out a silent scream that caused the brick foundation to shift and open into a cobweb covered tunnel.

"So cool," Johnny remarked as they shuffled down a long stairwell that ended at a doorway with a bulky, red cyclops standing at the entrance. He wore a silver earpiece with a clipboard in one hand and a monocle in the other.

 _"Prénom?"_ was what he said as the monster lifted his monocle and glanced up from his clipboard expectantly.

"Say again?" Johnny asked. The bouncer muttered something in French under his breathe before asking again in English with a rough, French accent.

"Name?"

"Oh..! Right! Umm... Dracula?" The bouncer held his monocle closer to his eye to inspect the clipboard more thoroughly and then glared at them with such a cold, hard stare, Johnny swore he could bore holes through his shirt, before he finally gave them the nod to go right in. Johnny gave him a casual thanks, trying to hide the breathe he had just been holding, before excitedly turning to his girlfriend and exclaiming, "Man, I can't believe that just the mention of your name gets us into all the coolest monster hangouts."

"Being the daughter of Dracula has its perks," Mavis shrugged before tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Though I wish it didn't give us so much attention."

Johnny tried not to take it personally when some of the monsters gave them strange looks, like they could see through his disguise. Probably, more likely than not, they were staring at them because they were tourists or because the name 'Dracula' had been mentioned, not because he had been found out.

He understood that not all monsters were comfortable with humans. There had been many places around the world where humans didn't interact so well with monsters, that Johnny had to suddenly slip into his Johnny-stein costume to help put the crowd at ease. Of course, Mavis always tried to talk him out of it and told him it didn't matter if he wasn't a monster or not, that she just wanted him to be his usual self, but he wasn't doing this because he was uncomfortable with who he was. He just didn't want to upset anyone. If a human suddenly showed up in a place that was secret from humans, it might end up like Mavis's birthday party and everyone would froth into a panic. It was like calling the cops on an epic rager- it just wasn't a very cool thing to do.

However, the Johnny-stein costume also worked in his favor tonight. Due to most of his wardrobe being made up of shorts, t-shirts, and jeans, it was the nicest thing he owned, and he wanted to look his best.

" _Garcon,_ bring us your finest bread rolls, hold the garlic," Johnny ordered the waiter when they had been seated and suddenly a low hush fell over the crowd as the lights flickered slightly. A woman spoke something French over the microphone that said the names "Lucille and Francoeur" before the crowd broke into an applause and cheers. A bright spotlight illuminated the curtains before they parted to reveal a young bird woman with white wings, wearing a cream colored Victorian gown. She walked to the center of the stage and began to sing a gentle tune that had an almost longing quality to it.

 _"Elle sort de son lit, t_ _ellement sur d'elle_  
_La seine, la seine, la seine_  
_Tellement jolie elle m'ensorcelle_  
_La seine, la seine, la seine..."_

Her soft melody rang clearly through the tavern and continued singing until her stanza drew to a close, her voice slowing with the orchestra when suddenly, a lone guitar played independently from the pit orchestra. The song began to pick up the pace as a guitarist in a white chapeau and overcoat joined her onstage and created a more lively sound. The bird woman danced around him and began to sing in English.

 _"She's resplendent, so confident,_  
_La Seine, La Seine, La Seine_ ,  
_I realize, I'm hypnotized_ ,  
_La Seine, La Seine, La Seine,_  
_I hear the moon singing a tune,_  
_La Seine, La Seine, La Seine_ ,  
_Is she divine? Is it the wine_?  
_La Seine, La Seine, La Seine..."_

The guitarist then lifted his arms out of his sleeves and gloves, revealing four arms and started playing an impressive guitar solo with four hands. Then he joined in the duet and sang a falsetto, dulcet voice about the Seine river and the magic of Paris. Johnny glanced over to see that his girlfriend was absolutely enamored with the performance.

Was this the right moment? It had the right ambiance, and his dad had proposed to his mom at a restaurant. He could always just do it here and drink champagne with Mavis at the Eiffel Tower to celebrate. That's what people did when they got engaged, right? Maybe he needed to wait until the food got here. Then he could slip it into her wine or bread-stick, or 'accidentally' drop it on the floor for her to find and pick up. There were so many options.

"Johnny?" He turned to notice that now Mavis was staring at him as she picked at her escargot. Apparently, that was even a monster dish. "I asked if you liked the show."

"Oh yeah, the beetle guy was really cool," Johnny fumbled for an answer. He hadn't even realized that their food had arrived.

"Are you alright? You're acting kind of weird."

"N-No way, man. It must, uh, must be the lighting or dust or something," he stammered awkwardly. What was wrong with him? "Anyways, what did you think of the show?"

"I thought it was really cool." He looked and saw her eying them as they talked with the pit orchestra.

"Why don't you ask them to come over?" Johnny suggested, which caused Mavis to blush and shake her head.

"Oh no, I couldn't-"

"Come on. People love meeting their fans," he then raised his arm and motioned for the duo to come over. The girl saw him before tugging on her partner's arm and walked over.

"Can I help you?"

"My girlfriend really liked your act. We just thought we would tell you guys that you sounded amazing up there," Johnny praised before turning towards the bug monster. "And you! You were amazing with that guitar solo, it just like-" He did a motion of air guitar and made rock noises. "I would love to jam with you some time."

"Thank you. I'm very 'appy you enjoyed the show," Lucille beamed as the flea monster gave a joyful chitter before tipping his hat. "It's nice to see that not everyone is a critic- wait! Are you Mavis Dracula?" Her mouth fell open, her mind starting to put the pieces together, and turned towards him, "And you! You're Jonathan!" Mavis looked down at her dish while Johnny rubbed the back of his neck and gave her a casual shrug.

"Most people just call me 'Johnny.'"

"Wait, aren't you supposed to be human?"

"I'm in disguise. It's make-up, see?" He rubbed off a little bit of the blue paint on his neck with his thumb and showed it to her.

"You know who we are?" Mavis asked.

"Are you kidding? Every monster knows about you two! You two are such an inspiration, coming out like you did."

"I didn't realize it was such a big thing," Mavis flushed in embarrassment though it didn't lessen her smile any.

"I've been friends with Francoeur for many years and it has been difficult wherever we go. Not all of us have the courage or social status to come forward." She cautiously leaned over and showed that her wings were detachable and strapped to her back.

"Holy rabies! You're a human?!" Mavis exclaimed in wonder before Lucille quickly put her hand over her mouth.

"Shh! It's part of the costume," Lucille whispered. "I help run a human cabaret during the morning and have to put these wings on for every performance, human or monster, just like Francoeur has to wear gloves and a mask." The flea let out a soft, mournful squeak.

"So you mean there are more people out there like us?" Johnny asked.

"Nothing more than a few rumors here and there, but I've definitely met more than my fair share of monsters who were curious about what humans are like."

"Great! Drac has been wanting his hotel business to be more human friendly. You guys should totally stop by for a visit, help spread the word."

"You mean your father is planning to open up his hotel to humans?" Lucille blinked.

"He's still working out the kinks, but it should be up and running in about a year or so," the vampire explained. "That's one of the things we've been doing while traveling, spreading the word. It would be so great if you two would come. It would really help show that humans and monsters can be together."

"That sounds wonderful," Lucille sighed. "I would love to finally go with my husband Raoul after all the nice things the other monsters have said about the hotel, and I know his friend Emile and his girlfriend would love to go. They've been meaning to shoot a movie in Romania for a couple of months now."

"Are they human?"

"Yes," she let out a giggle while Francoeur continued to smile in silence.

"Perfect!" Mavis gushed while Johnny pointed out the elephant in the room. "He doesn't say much, does he?"

"The scientist who helped make him only gave him the ability to sing," the singer explained as Francoeur picked at a string of thread on his coat and plucked out a tiny melody. "That, and play a mean guitar."

"Well, I hope that we see you all there soon," Mavis smiled at the young couple before they bowed and took their leave.

"You can count on it," and then Lucille lead Francoeur by the arm away to another table.

"So, what was it that you wanted to ask me?" Mavis asked.

"I uh- what I wanted to ask was umm-" Mavis stared up at him with her big, blue eyes, and suddenly Johnny was having second thoughts. Then a waiter came in and gave them the check. "If you wanted to split the check!"

"Oh! Umm, sure?"

"Great! Hey wait up, Lucille!" He couldn't get up fast enough as he scrambled away from his chair and pulled the 'angel' aside and whispered, "Between you and me, I'm planning to propose to Mavis tonight."

"Congratulations!" she exclaimed joyfully.

"Thanks! -though she's gotta say 'yes' first. I'm wondering, do you think it's more romantic here or at the Eiffel Tower?" he asked. "I'm planning on taking her there right after we finish up here."

"The Tower," she said without any hesitation in her voice. "The lights will be on and the view of the Seine river is perfect in the evening... Oh dear, you better hurry! Traffic is especially bad in Paris during this time of night."

"Oh man, you're right! We gotta move!"

"Good luck, _mon amie!_ I hope you make it!" He rushed nervously over to the table and saw that the waiter had brought them the check and their tinfoil swans.

"Grab the swans, May, we've got a train to catch!"

Later when he had time to explain, Mavis understood the situation used her vampiric strength and speed to subtly move through the crowd and took hold of his hand and pulled him along at ease, almost like he was a piece of luggage. They almost flew straight past the train station and, after having swiped their passes and sent two turntables spinning at breakneck speeds, they came to an abrupt halt inside the Metro train bound for the Champ de Mars right as the doors shut. A few passengers blinked at their sudden appearance but most just looked up from their to give them a dirty look before they sat down and went about their business.

"Phew! Made it," Johnny sighed as he slid into a cold subway seat and Mavis joined him shortly after. "You want to finish those birds?"

"Sure." The young couple broke into some of their leftovers as they waited for their stop to be announced. It was a little more difficult to understand, since the subway rattled and clanked over the speakers and in French, so most of the words were lost in translation, one way or another, so they just tried to keep count of how many stops they made. By the time their stop came and they got off onto the platform, Johnny began to feel more nervous than he ever had in his life.

 _She will say yes... right?_ Johnny fumbled around for the ring in his pocket, checking more than once that it was, in fact, still there and not magically falling through a hole in his jeans and rolling down into a sewer drain. The more he waited for the elevator, the greater his anxiety and anticipation grew.

"Hey Mavis, let's skip the elevator."

"Really?"

"Yeah. You, uh, can't really say you've experienced the Eiffel Tower until you've actually climbed it."

"Okay." She briskly walked up the flights of stairs with ease, passing many people coming down from the first platform. Eventually, they would have to take an elevator, which was a relief to Johnny. He couldn't climb a hundred and eight stories. That was too much, even for him.

"Come on, Johnny."

"I'm right... behind you, just..." Johnny panted, clinging to the hand rails. "Just give me... a sec and let me... catch my breathe..." He wasn't even at the top of the tower and Johnny was already starting to see stars. While he considered himself to be in relatively good shape for his age, his days of professional slacking did not help his endurance for climbing stairs. "You want to... go all the way... to top... right?"

"Yes, but we don't have to wait for the elevator if you don't want to. I can just fly us up there." Oh right. Duh. His girlfriend could fly. Not wanting to wait any longer and after checking to make sure no one was looking, Mavis transformed into a bat and grabbed onto the back of his jacket and flew up the side of the iron tower. When they landed on the highest platform, hardly anyone was around. The tower was about to close in a few minutes, and everyone had gone home.

"So whatcha think? Pretty cool, right?"

"It's... beautiful," Mavis gaped at the scenery with such admiration, like when he had shown her her first sunrise.

"Yeah. Beautiful." Only he wasn't looking at the view. The entire night, he had been staring at her. This was it. He had to say something, or he was going to burst. "Mavis?"

"Yeah?" She asked, not turning away from the spectacular sight.

"Mavis, ever since we met, you've been like the coolest girl I know, and I'm not talking about your skin. So uh, I guess what I've been trying to say is-" He fumbled around for the ring, he found he was suddenly regretting his choice of taking the ring out of the box before he proposed as his skilled, guitar calloused fingers decided now to be butterfingers. The ring continued to roll toward the side before and yelped as he reached out for the ring and slipped off the side of the railing towards the ground before Mavis caught him by the ankles.

She had such a sudden look of worry in her eyes as he looked up at her, dangling over the side of the Eiffel Tower in the safety of her grip, a thousand feet from plummeting to his death and illuminated by the moonlight, realizing it was now or never and simply lifted up the ring in his hand and said, "Will you marry me?"

The look of shock on her face had taken her by surprise that she accidentally dropped him. "Hold on, Johnny!" she yelled as she jumped off the side of the rail after him and caught him before flying high into the air with him in her arms like a reverse Superman and Lois Lane.

"Thanks for not letting me fall to my death," he joked with a casual laugh, thinking that he was just about to free fall off over a thousand feet off of the Eiffel Tower and that him proposing was actually more scary than the fall itself. Rather than set him back down on the second platform, she continued to fly them higher into the sky until they were near the top of the tower. "So..?" he finally asked, to which she turned to him and gave him a startled look.

"You mean, you really don't mind... being with me forever?"

"Heck yeah! I mean, you know, if you want?" he exclaimed before giving her a genuine smile. "I love you, Mavis, and I want to spend my life with you. You're my zing." Mavis's unsure expression melted away into a warm smile as she hugged him tightly.

"Then of course I will!"

"So I take that as a 'yes'?" Johnny winced, feeling the air crushed out of his lungs.

"YES!" she shouted and Johnny let out a loud whoop.

"Awesome!" And he hugged her back and leaned in for a long passionate kiss as their silhouettes were illuminated by the full moon and the world never felt so bright. "Happy birthday, Mavis."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh, you guys, I had so much fun with this chapter. Originally I had envisioned Mavis and Johnny traveling the world alone, but then I realized there's no way that Drac would let his daughter travel alone for such a long time period with a teenage boy, even if he does trust Johnny and years to vampires are like months to humans, so I made it so that some of the places they would be staying would be places Drac would have set up in advanced through his network of monsters (not all of them though). By the way, I know that Mavis's mom isn't really the Mona Lisa, but a lot of facts have been discredited about the painting, and I thought it would be a fun sort of thing to have Mavis see when traveling to see some human culture.
> 
> Fun fact! Culver City is where Bela Lugosi was buried. Also, the L'Oiseau Rare ("Rare Bird" in English) cabaret was actually a reference to the French animated movie "A Monster in Paris," which was an abridgement of Gaston Leroux's "Phantom of the Opera" (only with monster fleas instead of deformed people pretending to be ghosts; for future reference, Erik Dresser will actually be a ghost instead of flesh and blood). I realize, of course, that there are already monster fleas in Hotel Transylvania, but if they can have multiple versions/relatives of Frankenstein and the Invisible Man, despite there's only supposed to be one, then gosh darn it, I can have giant fleas and tiny monster fleas exist in the same universe as well!


	4. Monster Mash

Water pounded on top of the roof of the monster hotel as a massive rainstorm moved through the mountains. Thunder and lightning cracked through sky, creating enough artificial light to make the monsters below think it was daytime. All it did was remind Drac of all the times when Mavis was a few decades younger, used to crawl into his coffin anytime she was spooked of a daytime thunderstorm or if she'd had nightmares about an angry mob. That feeling alone helped fuel his anger as the scene played out.

"You cannot imagine the pain I will cause you," the vampire hissed threateningly, the thunder outside emphasizing his menacing tone, as if feeling his wrath. "You will regret the day that you ever set foot in my castle."

_"Save me, oh, King! That lunatic stole me and took me to Hawaii,"_ spoke a high pitched voice that came from a doll that sat in a plush of throw pillows on top of a coffin canopy bed.

"Fear not, my little princess. That redheaded gorilla will pay for taking you away from me!" Drac spoke in her regular voice as he challenged his opponent, a worn, stuffed bunny rabbit that floated around in the air on top of the bedspread.

_"Oh please, King, save me! Save me!"_

"Oooh wah! Huh! Hi-ya!" Dracula snatched the 'captive' raggedy doll from the pillow fort and started punching and hitting the orange, velveteen rabbit with all his might before throwing the unfortunate victim onto the bed with his magic, over and over.

"Uh Drac, what are you doing?"

The stuffed animal dropped to the bed with a soft, surprised squeak. Drac halted his attack on the despicable rabbit to see his friends Frank and Wayne staring at him from across the room.

"Oh, what? I was, uh..." Drac stammered as he shoved the stuffed animals behind his back and started twisting his wrists and floated the toys back into his daughter's dresser. "I was just freshening up in here for when Mavey comes home." He gave them a sheepish, innocent smile as he pulled out a bit of Mavis's Bloodstone perfume that she had left sitting on her vanity and started spritzing it around the room. Frank and Wayne shared a look before the wolf-man voiced his concerns.

"Drac, your daughter's having a great time traveling the world. You have her staying with monsters you know, and she has always checked in with you every time she travels to another country. She's fine."

"She wanted to go see the world. She's seen it. 'Hi, world. Nice to see you,' now come home already!" He sat on her coffin and pouted. To tell the truth, this wasn't the first time Drac had wandered into his daughter's room.

Weeks after she had taken off on her worldwide excursion, Drac had to stop himself from habitually going to her room to check up on her and invite her down to dinner or ask if she wanted to go hunting for scorpions every time he passed her room, and months later he found himself occasionally wandering into her room just to be close to the things she left behind. Making sure the hotel human friendly and up-to-date was just busy work, a slight deterrent from his depression, but what had been the final nail in the metaphorical coffin was receiving a notice that she wasn't coming home for her birthday, deciding to spend the day in Paris with Johnny instead.

It was going to be the first birthday Drac would miss in one hundred and eighteen years, and that left him thoroughly depressed. He was already melancholy that she had been gone for so long, having never been apart from her for more than a few days or a week at the most, but when he had been told that she wasn't going to be home for her birthday, the one holiday he thought would guarantee her to coming home, it left him broken. Normally, he would have already been planning a grand party that would top last year's celebration, but now he couldn't even do that. September twenty eighth was now just another day, and this left him with a huge hole in his heart.

It had been even worse when he had to call and cancel all of the orders. Not only did he have to re-explain himself the situation to his vendors, vendors that had been loyal to him for almost a century, but apparently, the smashed pumpkin boy band's appearance fee was non-refundable; he couldn't even get his deposit back. Something about interrupting their tour months after the Budapest rock festival had taken place.

"Drac, maybe you should go out and see the world a little," Frank suggested with a shrug. "The humans love us out there."

"I don't need to be a celebrity in order to feel accomplished," Drac explained. "I've lived for over half a millennium. I've already seen the world."

"We're not saying that you have to backpack across Europe. Just leave the hotel for a few hours or take a day off."

"And let the hotel fall to pieces when I'm gone? No, my place is right here at the hotel, waiting for Mavey, right here." He then underlined his decision by sitting on his daughter's bed and adamantly folded his arms with an earnest, yet proud, expression.

"Come on, Drac. This isn't healthy. I just saw you playing with Mavis's old toys-" Wayne spoke in concern.

"I told you, I was freshening up," the vampire corrected him with a slight growl, his back now arched and defensive.

"Fine, if not for you, then do it for the hotel," Wayne proposed, trying to find any excuse to get his friend to leave the house. "You've been wanting to make the hotel more human friendly, so maybe we should actually advertise it to some actual humans."

"What are you blathering on about?" Frank then took this opportunity to jump in.

"You remember that monster festival we saw last year? Well, while you chased after Johnny's plane, we stuck around for a little while, and it turns out that they wanted to invite all of us to this year's festival as guests."

"You mean you didn't come all this way just to go to Mavis's birthday party?"

"We were planning to go to the convention a little bit earlier in the afternoon and then come back before the party started in the evening when everyone's a bit more active." Drac's eyebrows raised. That certainly explained why he hadn't seen his friends since they'd had checked into the hotel.

"Griffin and Murray are already there at the convention doing Meet and Greets, and they're having the time of their lives! We just thought that since the party's cancelled, you might want some cheering up and would want to come join us." Frank continued explaining before putting his hand on Drac's shoulder. "I know you miss Mavis and want nothing more than to be here when she gets back, but you can't just always just sit and wait for things to happen. You'll make yourself sick if you do that. Is that how you want to greet Mavis after all her months of traveling? You know she wouldn't want to see you like this."

He mulled his best friend's words over in his head, suddenly feeling small and insecure as the collar of his cape drooped with his hunched shoulders.

"I don't know..."

"Look, if you change your mind, the monster festival people are still holding out their invitation for you being a surprise guest at this year's convention right until the actual day. Maybe you should take some time there to relax, go have some fun, try to advertise your hotel, and really get a start gaining some human clients. You can still RSVP." Drac glanced at his friends and bit the inside of his cheek. On one hand, going into a human town unexposed made him nervous -it had been centuries since he had walked into a human village with his presence and true identity known- but on the other hand, maybe Frank was right. Maybe this was a blessing in disguise.

By going to the convention, he would be able to advertise his hotel for human audiences and the positive attention would help establish better relationships with humans and dissuade a lot of controversy and tension on both sides, not to mention it would help get his mind off of things, like the Mavis-shaped hole in his heart. Either way, though he hated to admit it, anything was better than sulking in his daughter's bedroom, venting his frustrations onto her stuffed animals.

"Alright, I'm in," the vampire relented. "When do we do this?"

* * *

Karen had welcomed the bright Saturday morning with dread and anticipation for this year's Monster Festival- or Mon-Con 2013 as the locals called it -and so far, nothing had swayed her from those feelings. It was 7 am when Karen hustled everyone towards the bus stop and a two hour wait in-line to pick up everyone's Mon-Con badges. Since children under the age of twelve got into the convention for free, the only tickets she had to pay for were for her and Alex, and because they were One-Day passes, they were discounted at half the original price of a Four-Day Pass. Normally, she would have rather spent her only day off relaxing or catching up on some chores or laundry she had put off, or at least sleeping in until 9 am, but she wanted to make it a family outing.

After dealing with so much of the festival's annual chaos, Karen was at her limit when it came to monster conventions. She already had an aversion of the horror genre and all things macabre, being exposed to it for so much of her life. She didn't need to be in a mosh-pit of monster nerds trying to outdo each other's butchered Dracula impression to figure that out, but she had promised Jack that they could go this year for his birthday since she had relented to throwing a cowboy themed party in favor of his twin Jesse, and being the veteran that she was, Karen knew how to work the circuit.

Still, she tried not to let it weigh her down. The best part about conventions was that there were always different things going on, stuff that you could participate in if the usual main events or attractions didn't interest you. It was why she was currently dressed as Sally from _the Nightmare Before Christmas_ , helping a nine year old Jack Skellington spin a roll of toilet paper around his fifteen year old brother.

"Looking good, little brother," Karen praised while Alex gave her a dirty look.

"It's hot," he complained as she and Jack took turns spooling the roll around his legs, trying to beat the clock without breaking the ongoing strand.

"Well, good thing that toilet paper is absorbent, then," Karen retorted with a smirk before looking towards her other siblings. "How's yours coming along, Jesse?" The cowboy with zombie face-paint only responded with a mild grunt and a thumbs up, too focused on covering his baby brother Quincy with toilet paper. "You almost done there, Lucy-loo?"

"Almost..." The five year old witch stuck out her tongue as she tried to spool the last of the toilet paper onto her stuffed cat's tail before tying it like a bow at the end. She could have cared less about the contest. "There! All done!"

"She looks purr-fect." Alex rolled his eyes Karen's cheap attempt at a pun before they were covered with toilet paper. As much as she detested the painstaking effort that it took to apply her makeup this morning, Karen was grateful that Alex had lost the rock-paper-scissors fight for who would be participating in the mummy toilet paper roll contest; having done so would be uncomfortable as well as smudge all of her makeup. Her budget couldn't already afford the enormous amount of blue makeup and body paint it would have taken to make up her costume, so she just used some makeup powder, a bit of black eyeliner for the stitches and some blue eye shadow to make her eyes pop.

"DONE!" Jesse and Jack shouted in unison, throwing their hands up in the air. The judge went over and looked at the two mummies the twins had bound, both equally covered in toilet paper, but only one of them was completely covered enough to satisfy the judge.

"We have a winner!" the judge announced, lifting up the skeleton brother's hand. "Congratulations. Here's your prize." The announcer then handed him a gift basket. Karen turned towards the smaller cocoon, peeling away the layers like a spider before she managed to find a face.

"Way to be a great sport, Q-tee," Karen praised her baby brother. "As a reward, we can go get ice cream later with extra gummy bears."

"Whoo!" Quincy cheered and tore the toilet paper off of his dragon costume with great enthusiasm. Alex was starting to take his off as well before Karen grabbed his arm and clicked her tongue.

"You keep your's on."

"Come on! It's freaking hot in this thing," Alex complained.

"I don't hear Quincy complaining, and he's a seven year old wearing a Toothless onesie and toilet paper." Alex watched in envy as the seven year old tore the layers of toilet paper off of his chest and wings.

"Hey Karen, look! A monkey's paw!" Jack held up his prize, a plastic mummified hand partially wrapped in weathered ACE bandages, simply beaming with pride.

"Very cool, Jack," Karen congratulated him before giving him a high five. "Don't accidentally waste all your wishes."

"So now what are we going to do?" Jack asked.

"There's a _Scary Movie_ marathon going on in an hour."

"Nah, even for satire, that's too scary for you kids," Karen frowned, noticing a Freddy Krueger walking into the theater, before thinking, "Oh! I wonder if they still bob for apples?"

"Why don't you go grab a guidebook rather than guess, like you said you were going to?" Alex suggested.

"I didn't want to."

"Why not?" Alex turned and followed her averting eyes that eventually landed on the clown from Stephen King's _It,_ who was currently handing out the flyers and red balloons, and quickly gave Karen a disapproving look. "Are you serious?"

"Hey! I don't judge you for your fear of Furbies," Karen exclaimed and held up her hands defensively.

"I'm telling you, those things are possessed!" Alex argued before he stopped, a cocky grin replacing his look of disdain. "Alright. I'll make a deal with you. I'll keep the costume on if you go get a flyer from Pennywise."

"Wha-? That's not-!" Karen stuttered before rolling her head back and let out a sigh. "...Ugh, _fine._ If it will get you to participate." Karen hesitated before she slowly walked up to the evil clown. She could already feel her heart rapidly beating out of her chest, faster with each footstep until she locked eyes with him.

_Oh dear sweet god, he has contacts! That is so freaking creepy!_ "H-Hi... C-Can I have a flyer, please?" There! She said it! There was no going back.

"Sure, but," the clown held out a flyer before retracting his arm, giving her a sly grin. "Don't you want a balloon instead?"

Karen felt a shiver of fear and revulsion go down her spine. Out of all people, why did they have make the creepy clown in charge of handing out flyers and programs?

"I want a balloon!" Lucy asked jubilantly, suddenly running up and appearing by her side, startling Karen. Pennywise turned towards the witch, his eyes distant and glassy, before he gave her a mischievous smile and knelt down to hand her a red balloon.

"Just the flyer, please," Karen interjected with a tight smile, blocking Lucy from the clown with her arm.

"Are you sure you don't want a balloon?"

"NO-!" Karen shrieked and smacked the balloon out of his hand, causing it to float towards the sky before catching herself. "Th-thank you. We're fine. Really."

"But I want a balloon-" Lucy protested with a frown before Karen covered her mouth.

"You don't want that balloon, sweetie," she spoke in rush, her voice sharp and jittery. "I'll get you a different balloon." She practically yanked the flyer out of the disgruntled clown's hands as she speed walked away, gripping the Mon-Con program in one hand and clutching onto Lucy's hand with the other and hurried her little sister over to the others, giving Alex her darkest look which translated into 'I'm going to put Cool Whip on your pillow and dump a colony of fire ants on you while you sleep.'

"So now that we have a program," Karen declared, trying not to grit her teeth, "what are you thinking about doing, Jack?"

"What about the How-to panel for 'How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse'?" Alex suggested. "That sounds kind of cool."

"That's for eighteen and up, Alex. Even you don't qualify for that."

"Okay then, what about the Q & A Monster panel?"

"Oooh can we go do that?" Jack bounced in excitement.

"That won't be for another hour or so, and it'll be way past your bedtime by the time it ends."

"Please, Karen!" the skeleton boy pleaded, though his eyes were covered with black paint, they were still as soulful as ever. "I promise not to be grumpy in the morning, I swear! Cross my heart and hope to die!"

"Well... I guess we can go check out whatever they've got in the movie showing room and kill some time before we go check out other stuff." Karen relented with a shrug.

Unfortunately, the only movies they could qualify for with their age requirement -meaning Karen was the only one allowed into the majority of horror movies, most of which she had absolutely no interest in viewing again- were animated children cartoons. They were about halfway through watching the second _Scary Godmother_ movie, _Scary Godmother 2: Revenge of Jimmy,_ as part of a double-feature when Alex looked at the time and noticed it was half past 5.

"Whoa, we better leave now if we want to do _Castlevania_ laser tag. We're going to lose our slot if we don't start making our way toward the field."

"But that takes place during the Q & A monster panel!" Jack exclaimed. "We can't miss that!"

"We already signed up for this prior to you finding out about the panel," Alex defended. "Come on, Karen. You know how hard it is to get those kind of slots and if we don't go now, it's going to be taken over by the Humans vs Zombies tournament." Karen was torn. On one hand, she wanted to let Alex but on the other, she really didn't have the energy to run around shooting her brothers with laser pistols and monster whips.

"What if we just go by ourselves?" Jesse suggested. "That way Jack can go check out his nerd panel while Quincy, Alex, and I go slay some monsters."

"Okay, but be sure to meet up around the wax museum figures when you're done, and keep your phone on." Alex stood up and urged his brothers up from their seats, escorting the dragon and an undead cowboy behind him. Not long after they had left, and it was only a couple of minutes until the big monster panel. People were already lining up outside of the auditorium.

"Can we go get that balloon now?" Lucy asked after they left the movie viewing room.

"Sure, sweetie," Karen smiled and squeezed the little witch's hand as they moved towards one of the vendors selling purple and green Monster Festival balloons.

"Aren't you broads a little old to be trick or treating?" A witch behind her suddenly quoted.

"Aren't you a little young to be calling anyone a 'broad'?" Karen immediately fired back before she stopped as a look of recognition caused her to stop cold in her tracks. She knew this girl and it wasn't long before she squealed 'Karen!', ran up to her, and snagged her in a tight embrace.

"I can't believe you're here! What has it been? Nine years?"

"Seven," Karen corrected before breaking out into a wide, thin smile. "How are yunz?"

"Good. Great, actually," she then raised up her left hand and revealed a shiny white rock on her finger.

"You're... engaged?" she paled before giving her friend a water-downed grin and gave her friend another hug with fake enthusiasm. "Congratulations."

"Thanks. We thought about inviting you to the wedding, but it ended up being a crazy shotgun wedding in Vegas, only close friends and family. It was sort of spur of the moment."

It was all she could do to smile in this moment to help her get past the awkward, wanting to change the subject. "So you didn't go as the Sanderson sisters again this year? I thought it was a tradition."

"Well, it's just not the same without the third Sanderson sister, though if we had known you were coming, we would have gladly."

"Sorry, but I'm already taken," she placed her hand on Jack's shoulder. "And let's be honest. Yunz only wanted me to be Mary because I had the perfect sweeper for the job."

"I see that," she noticed. "Where are the boys?"

"They're playing laser tag with Alex," Lucy spoke up.

"Oh my god, who's this little witch?"

"I'm Lucy."

"Oh my gosh, she's adorable! Is she your daughter?"

Karen blanched. " _No_ , she's my sister." She wasn't that old, was she?

"I didn't know you had a sister."

"Well, it has been seven years... a lot's happened." Now Katie seemed to be affected by the icy atmosphere.

"So what are you doing in Romania?"

"Funny thing: I kind of live here now."

"...You're kidding."

"I'm not."

"Why? You hate this kind of thing, and Romania is, like, supernatural monster central like Salem or Rome or Gary, Indiana."

A small boy with a skeleton face painted on ran up to her and tugged her arm. "Come on, Karen! They're going to be opening the auditorium doors soon!"

"Be there in a second, Jack," Karen called out before giving her friends a sympathetic smile. "I'm sorry, Katie, but I need to go to a panel."

"Oh-! Uh, sure."

"But you promised we could go get a balloon," Lucy whined before huffing and crossing her arms in a defiant pout.

Karen knelt down towards her sister and said, "We can come back and get you your balloon some other time. Promise."

"Okay, well, it was good seeing you, Karen. Hit me up on my Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram."

"Sure." Karen lied and grabbed onto her siblings' hands before leading them towards the panel, doubtful that she would ever be getting a friend request from her old college roommate in the near future.

* * *

Despite that Karen and her family had been crammed into the back of the auditorium, it was easy to tell where the fan-clubs were. The Wolfpack sat adjacent to the Franken-skanks and studs, the Crypt Keepers were having a lively discussion with the Walkers on if mummies were the original undead, and occasionally you could find some Buffistas or Potterheads lumped in together with a couple of witch covens and Hunters, all talking about how almost the entire community mutually agreed that Twihards were the worst, but the largest section in front of the panel were the Brides of Dracula: a large fustercluck of women of all ages wearing 19th century corsets, fangs, Gothic finger-less gloves, and eyeliner.

Rumors spoke about there having been a stunt pulled at last year's convention by what a lot of people claimed to be the real Dracula, though it was probably another publicity stunt or promotion for the latest monster horror film. Judging from the panel summary, this year didn't seem to be any different. Since most conventions didn't have it in their budget to bring in major actors unless they were desperate or out of work, a lot of people did cosplay panels where people would show dressed up as their favorite monsters and role-play with the audience for an hour or two as their respective characters.

Karen let out a dejected sigh.

She remembered the times where film could get away with being scary by having entire special effects teams put on make-up and minimal CGI- the nausea inducing transformation sequence of _An American Werewolf in London_ had been a gruesome bout of horrific genius (at least, that was what her father always said). She could also understand that every iteration of the horror genre involving monsters had its own rules and writing quirks, that not all monster traits would be romanticized and some would fall through the cracks. However, she could not forgive ineptitude, not if the original message was lost. Vampires were masters of body horror and represented the fear of change and sexual awakening. They were to be feared and fascinating, not sparkle and put a romantic spin on abusive relationships.

_"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, monsters of all ages, welcome to the Mon-Con 2013 Monster Q & A panel!"_

The announcer declared before giving the crowd his pomp and circumstance introductions of the monsters awaiting to walk onstage to Bobby 'Boris' Pickett & The Crypt-Kickers "Monster Mash." Unlit torches were raised like cellphones in a rock concert as a clunky, blue-skinned man called Frankenstein walked across the stage, along with other monsters like the Mummy and the Wolfman. She wasn't even sure when the Invisible Man had gotten on stage, only seeing a floating pair of glasses that she suspected to be held up with a spool of fishing line, but she knew what everyone had come for when a hush fell over on the crowd.

_"And finally, but certainly not least, the king of vampires, the Prince of Darkness himself: Count Dracula!"_

The crowd's roar rattled the auditorium, the emcee barely being able to finish the introduction before fans of all ages drowned him out in a mad cheer. The vampire prince, startled briefly by the loud noise, gave a short, polite wave to the audience before taking his seat with a proud yet embarrassed grin on his face. Karen hated to admit it, but they had gotten a pretty decent impersonator this year. Minus the cape color and missing widow's peak, the guy could be a dead ringer for Bela Lugosi.

_"So Count-"_

"Please, Tom, call me Dracula," the vampire interjected.

_"Now Dracula, I hear you came by our monster festival last year. Is this true?"_

"Yes. My friends and I were driving through town on the way to the airport when we ran into oncoming traffic from your monster festival and had to walk on foot."

_"I remember that. If I remember correctly, your friend Frankenstein climbed onto a balloon effigy of himself and roared at the crowd to help clear a path for you."_

_"So if you and your friends have been in hiding for so many years, why reveal yourselves now?"_

"Ah y-yes. Well, it's a long story," he chuckled nervously.

_"We've got an hour and a half."_

"Well, you see, it all started about a year ago..." Dracula muttered awkwardly as he began to tell his story, and that was essentially what they did. The group talked about their journey through Brasov, a hotel for monsters, and a kid named Johnny who had fallen in love with Dracula's daughter -that part received a lot of 'awws' from the women of the audience, specifically the Brides- and the amount of wacky hi-jinks that took place.

_"So let me get this straight...You run a hotel? Dracula... runs a hotel?"_ the emcee asked in surprise. Karen arched an eyebrow. Not exactly what she expected.

"Yeah. Drac has been running a hotel for monsters for almost a century now," the Mummy named Murray explained. "It's place where monsters can unwind without ever having to worry about humans, but now it's more like a vacation destination."

"Basically, it's a place where we can be _au natural,"_ the Invisible Man called Griffin spoke into the microphone, sounding like he was making a comedic gesture if he was visible, earning a few chuckles from the audience.

_"Why would you do this?"_

"Well, originally it was an idea my late wife and I had planned to be a safe haven for our daughter to grow up away from the fear and persecution from humankind," Dracula continued. "But eventually it became a place where all monsters could come and relax and be themselves, but as you can see, that didn't turn out exactly as planned." That answer gave the audience a few awkward chuckles in the background.

_"And this hotel of yours, is it open to humans or is it exclusively for monsters?"_

"Actually, in the near future, we're planning on re-opening the hotel to humans as well as monsters."

_I knew it,_ Karen thought with a frown as the crowd's energy sparked to life, her negativity almost enhanced like a magnet with too much positive charges. It was a freaking hoax _,_ just another publicity stunt to help advertise a new business or product to fulfill another person's personal agenda. She didn't know why she let a bunch of rumors get her hopes up. Monsters weren't real. She had at least hoped that it would have been actors promoting a new movie or a show showing off its special effects and pyrotechnics, not another panel of dudes in cosplay role-playing for an hour and a half. It was like going to Disney World. You go there knowing everything is a facade, but you still hope for the magic.

Thinking this, Karen looked over to see if Lucy wanted to sit on her lap to get a better view. The little witch was nowhere to be found.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I stole a little bit of the alternate opening for Hotel Transylvania 2's deleted scenes for the beginning of the chapter, but mainly because I think the original opening I had was a bit too depressing and unrealistic for Drac to be feeling right now, and I thought the scene was so good that it deserved a little light shed on it.


	5. Monster Mania

The Drac pack arrived in Brasov in one of the hotel's hearses a little bit before six pm. Expecting the enormous crowds they had encountered last year and some latent mountain traffic, they had planned ahead and beat most of rush hour though Drac had to bring a large sunhat to shield himself from the setting sun.

"You can let us out here, Porridge-Head," Drac ordered his bellhop before placing his billowing yellow hat on. The zombie let out a low groan, pulled the hearse to an abrupt stop, and dropped off the monster crew. Despite his zombie coworkers being slow walkers, they sure had lead feet.

"Rrrrrruh...?"

"I don't care where you park. Just be sure you can find it later." Then the hearse quickly drove off with a loud, over-dramatic screech before Drac turned to his two zombie assistants that came with him, Frank, and Wayne. He fumbled around underneath his cape before found what he was looking for and pulled out two large stacks of red pamphlets with gold trim seemly from out of nowhere before dumping into their arms. "You two, go pass these flyers out."

Frank watched the two bellhops walk away before turning towards his friend. "I know you want to advertise the hotel, Drac, but did you really need to bring so many pamphlets?"

"Any publicity is good publicity," was the vampire's answer. "Besides we've got a lot of ground to cover and little time to do it in."

"Yeah, but, you're going to try and relax a little, right?" Wayne asked.

"Yes, sure, whatever. Where exactly are we supposed to be right now anyways?" Drac said, wanting to cut to the chase. The golem monster and wolfman shared a look. Things weren't going exactly as they had planned.

"Well, first we're supposed to check in and let the staff know we're here," Frank explained as he pulled out a pamphlet he had stashed away in his coat pocket and unfolded it to a small map of the city. "Then they'll give us the list of panels we need to go to." Drac's eyebrow arched skeptically.

"'Panels?' As in plural?"

Wayne quickly raised up his paws in reassurance. "Don't worry, Drac. You don't have to do them all. Let's just do the big question and answer panel we promised to do. It's where we're supposed to go meet up with Murray and Griffin anyways." Dracula let out a breathe. He was just here for the hotel. He wasn't here for fun. He was just here to help bring in more business, not thinking about his darling Mavis and her boyfriend Johnny being in the most romantic city in the world having fun. He wasn't thinking about them. Not. At. All.

"Sick costume, man. Creatures of the night unite!" A goth dressed teenager with dark hair and black eyeliner cheered before doing a fist pump in the air and ran up to him. "Can I get a picture?"

"Well, I-" Drac began before he felt an arm rudely grab him around his shoulder and tightly pull him in close for a selfie. After snapping the picture, the teen did a motion with his thumb on the phone's glass screen. "Let me see if we need to do another one." Drac frowned. That wasn't likely. He never turned out well in photos. However, looking over the teen's shoulder, he did notice something odd about the picture but the teen pulled his phone away too quickly before he could inspect it further.

"Thanks, man! This is going to look awesome on my blog."

"Let me see that!" Drac exclaimed as he snatched the kid's phone out of his hand and examined the photo more closely. Something strange _was_ going on with the photo. Rather than have the teenager's arm sticking out under a floating sunhat, a middle-aged man with a long chin and a hooked nose stood there instead. It only took Drac a couple of seconds to realize that the handsome stranger he was viewing was himself.

"Hey man, be careful! That's the latest iPhone you're holding!" the boy exclaimed, but he paid him no mind. How was this possible? He wasn't supposed to be seen in photographs- also did he really look that fat? He was going to have a word with his portrait painter. Maybe his camera was cursed. Yes, that had to be it. Strangely enough, the Count also noticed that there was a tall slender man standing behind him in the photo that lacked a face, someone who he didn't remember having the picture taken with. He turned around and sure enough, the mysterious, faceless figure loomed ominously behind them.

"Oh! Hey, Slendie!" the teen greeted the character, who had somehow managed to impressively sneak up behind a vampire. The figure did a slow gesture and a slight head tilt. "Yeah, I'm all done here. Let's go get some street food from that food stand over there." The teen snatched his phone out of the Count's hand and walked towards one of the festival's many meaty food stands. Drac noticed that his friends were already a couple yards ahead of him dealing with their own sort of paparazzi before he caught up with them. Neither of them had noticed that their friend had been bombarded as well.

"Sooo I think the guy said the stage entrance was somewhere around the back," Frank finally spoke up, looking up from his map as they wandered through the streets of Brasov.

"You mean that back entrance in the alley with the scary looking guy with the earpiece?" Wayne pointed a claw towards the self-same man he described with the words 'crew' emblazoned in white on his black shirt.

"That might be a good place to look."

"Hi. We're here for the Monster Q & A panel," Wayne explained to the guard. He lowered his sunglasses and gave the group a cold look before recrossing his arms.

"Sure you are, just like the other monsters." The stagehand then jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. Behind the bouncer were groups of people standing behind wire rails. They were dressed in an almost similar fashion to the monster celebrities, some wearing make-up with slightly more exaggerated colors while others were wearing masks made of rubber or masks that were fabricated from paper-mache.

"Nice fangs, by the way. Where'd you get them? The party store?" the guy scoffed with deep sarcasm.

"They're real," Drac scowled.

"Sure they are. I bet they're adhesive. How much glue did you have to use to keep them on?"

"Ugh, I don't have time for this," Drac rolled his eyes before he gave the guard a red-eyed glare. Immediately, the guard went rigid and moved robotically to the side.

"Right this way..." he said in a monotone voice. Drac then gave the guard a toothy smile, exposing his fangs.

"Thank you. You have been most accommodating."

His friends followed behind him while the crowd was left dumbfounded, taking a few seconds to process what they had just seen before they all started shouting excitedly, trying to push past the iron gates that held them back before the heavy metal door shut behind them, creating an air of calm and silence. It only lasted for a short while, the background illuminated with red emergency lights and other various theatre lights before it opened up to a more clearly lit open space filled with wires and people with black t-shirts running everywhere with clipboards and carts carrying sound equipment. One of the women workers noticed them and quickly started speaking into her headset.

"Are they here?" a voice spoke over the noise somewhere far ahead of them before a portly man with glasses began walking towards them. He smelled of sweat and had a bit of stubble growing around the edges of his neck-beard. "Hi, I'm Tom, your emcee for tonight." Tom almost immediately reached out and grasped Dracula's long, cold hand before shaking it enthusiastically. "Thank you so much for coming."

"Yes..." Drac gave him a strained smile before discreetly wiping his hand on the part of his tuxedo that remained hidden underneath his cape. Tom went onto shaking the other monsters' hands.

"If there is anything I can get you folks before we get started, please just let me know. We'll get craft services right on it."

"Oooh! Do you have any rat dogs or coffin cakes with scream cheese?" Frank asked eagerly.

"I could go for some rat dogs," Wayne nodded in agreement.

"No but we have hot dogs and coffee cake with _regular_ cream cheese," Tom gave them a nonplussed smile before turning towards Drac. "Anything I can get you, Count?"

"Just a bagel with scream cheese will be fine," Drac ordered, draping his cape over himself so it obscured more of his suit.

"You mean 'cream cheese.'"

"Yeah, sure. Whatever." The stage manager then let out a loud bellow. "John! Wren! Get these monsters some refreshments!"

A scatterbrained young man with greasy unkempt black hair nervously began throwing some food onto a platter, bumping into his calmer counterpart before the latter presenting quickly presented them with an assorted selection of meats, cheeses, crackers, vegetables, fruit, and desserts. It was almost eaten seconds after it had reached them as the entire tray of food slid into Frank's wide mouth and swallowed with a loud, satisfied gulp.

"That was great! Do you have anymore?" Frank complimented after letting out a loud burp, holding the dumbfounded intern a clean, silver platter. No matter how much he ate, the reanimated corpse could always put away more food. If it had been his event, Drac would have worried on whether craft services would have prepared enough for his friend's monstrous appetite. However, he was not in-charge of this event and tried to remember this fact as he tuned back into the stage-manager's conversation.

"-So while we wait, here's how things are going to go for this panel," Tom explained to the group. "Basically, we'll ask you a few questions, help get the audience livened up for the party, and then we'll hand you over to the audience and answer some of their questions for the rest of the panel-" Drac stiffened. No one had told him they were going to be handed over to a mob of people. "-When we need to get ready, there will be a ten minute warning call and then we'll get ready to go on. We've got a little under thirty minutes before we start, so stick around back here until then and we'll call you up on stage. Any questions?"

"What if-?"

"Good! Alright, well, if you need anything, ask one of our staff and we'll try and accommodate you as best as we can. Your friends Griffin and Murray can fill you in on the other panels you'll need to attend after this." Busy with the set-up, Tom quickly stepped away to take care of something. Drac felt like everything was gradually spinning out of his control, but he tried not to let it show in front of his friends. He just needed to get his thoughts together. He was here for the hotel, he was just here for his hotel...

"Here's your bagel with cream cheese," the jittery stagehand named Wren announced before holding out a small plate underneath the Count's nose." Can I take your hat for you, Mr. Dracula?"

"What? Oh, yes. Thank you," Drac snapped out of his trance, derailing his latest train of thought before handing his sunhat to the intern and trading it for the bagel. He had been so overwhelmed by everything else, he had forgotten to take it off when he went inside.

After giving it a cautious sniff, Drac sunk his fangs into the bagel. It tasted similar to what they had at the hotel, but it just wasn't the same as biting into food that screamed back at you. Honestly, he had ordered it because it was his daughter's favorite, and it probably wasn't likely that they carried his favorite food, blood pudding. His expression twisted into a sour face when he realized his bagel was also covered in poppy-seeds.

"I'm sorry, but could I have mine on a plain bagel?"

"Absolutely! So sorry about that! I'll get right on it straight away!" Wren apologized profusely, though you wouldn't have guessed that he was sorry by the admiration in his eyes.

"I think you've got a fan, Drac," Frank observed with a smile as he downed another coffee cake. Drac wasn't trying to be picky or take advantage of the human. He just preferred things a certain way. Also, poppy-seeds always got stuck in his teeth.

"Here's your plain bagel with cream cheese, hold the garlic," Wren winked. Drac offered him a weak laugh, a little unnerved that so many people knew about his life threatening allergies, taking the plate out of the intern's hand.

"By the way, I'm a huge fan of yours! _Dracula_ was one of my favorite books growing up. I know you guys will just do great!" Wren beamed with an eager shine in his eyes. "Please, if there's anything you need, name it. Blood, coffins, sunscreen-"

"Just the bagel will be fine," Drac interrupted and held a hand up, stopping the guy from going catatonic.

"Fields, get back to work!" Wren's boss shouted towards him.

"Sorry, got to go. Seriously, I am your minion for the day. Just... name it!" With that undying declaration, Wren took off.

"Drac, buddy, is that you?" He turned to see Murray walking up to him before giving him a hug. "How've you been, man? Didn't expect to see you here."

"Yes, well," Drac swept off the excess grains of sand that stuck to his cape. "I thought I would just come down and see what all the fuss was about."

"Don't worry about it," Griffin spoke confidently. "We're pros at this. Just do as the stagehands say, and everything will run smoothly."

After a while, Drac's nerves began to wind down and he began making small talk with his friends. It was like they had never left the hotel, but couldn't last. Soon more people started doing stage checks and then things started to move fast again.

"Alright, places, everyone. We're on in five!" one of the female stagehands yelled to everyone before leaning down into her headset. "Make sure all the guests are ready to go." They were then lined up behind the curtain, where the group could overhear many humans talking over each other in the background. Suddenly, the bagel started to feel like it coming up again and the Count began to appear paler than usual.

"Nervous, Drac?" Griffin asked, popping up out of nowhere like usual.

"Me? Nervous? Please! Dealing with crowds is one of my specialties," Drac waved off, lying through his teeth, which now made him more aware that bits of poppy-seed were still stuck behind his fangs. He quickly tried to pick them out as Tom stepped onto behind the curtain onstage and began speaking into the microphone.

 _"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, monsters of all ages, welcome to the Mon-Con 2013 Monster Q & A panel! __You guys having fun?"_ The audience responded with whoops and hollers. _"Well, we've got some excellent guests for you tonight, so please give them a big hand!"  
_

The audience resumed its cheers while Drac tried to regain his composure. This time, one of the stagehands did take notice, a girl with a curly blonde bob.

"Is this your first convention?" the stagehand asked him. At first, he wanted to lie, but then Drac relented and gave her a slight nod. "Don't worry about a thing. Just go on stage when your name is called and sit down at the table. You'll do great."

 _Easy for you to say. Your entire livelihood doesn't depend on the impression you make tonight,_ he thought as he gave her a nervous grin. It's not like he was just advertising his hotel completely. He was just generating some interest. That's what he tried to convince himself as he tuned back into Tom's introductions.

_"Now you see him, now you don't. Give it up for Griffin the Invisible Man!"_

"Wish me luck, not that I need it," Griffin said with his usual flair of confidence before walking onstage. It took a couple moments for the crowd to notice him, but when they did, you sure knew about it. Murmurs of confusion gradually changed into shouts of shock and awe as they lead into impressed cheers when Griffin took his seat that, if you didn't know what you were watching, would have looked like the chair pulled itself out like in a Harry Three-Eye magic show.

 _"Our oldest monster, aged around twenty five hundred years, is undead as well as an entertainer. Please welcome Murray the Mummy!"_ A large amount of sand conjured up from thin air and swirled around before the mummy appeared in front of his seat, sand dispersing over the sides of the grandstand from the pile as he sat down.

"Always with the sand..." Drac mumbled under his breath, rolling his eyes at his friend's need for a grand entrance. At least he didn't summon it in his hotel this time. Griffin, having been in the crossfire, had part of his body made visible due to the indents in the small dune formed on his side of the table and amount of sand he had to shake out of his afro.

_"He's lean, he's mean, he's got gangrene. Give it up for Frankenstein!"_

Some mixed reactions happened when Frank clunked on stage, the discourse aimed mostly at the emcee with corrections of "Frankenstein's monster" and shouts of "poser" and other unpleasant euphemisms. The master of ceremonies, however, was not phased in the slightest and continued on with the introductions.

 _"He's hairy, scary, and why we howl at the moon. Give it up for our wolfman, Wayne!"_ A loud outcry of howls bayed from one large section of the crowd covered with fur and claws, causing Wayne to instinctively join in before he caught himself mid-howl and coughed. He gave an embarrassed laugh and sat next to Murray. Tom waited a few minutes before a hush fell over the crowd.

_"And finally, but certainly not least, the king of vampires, the Prince of Darkness…"_

"That's your cue. Go!" The backstage assistant gave him a light shove towards his back, urging him onstage. Drac didn't know what to expect when he stepped out from behind the curtain, but when that bright spotlight hit him and he saw a crowd of thousands, he froze. At first, he was unsure that his name had been called, having been drowned out by deafening roar of the crowd, but once he moved past the sudden assault on his eardrums, the world began to have sound once more. It was so unusual to have such a large mob of humans screaming in admiration than in fear. It caught him a bit off-guard.

The feedback was more than he had been expecting. Even after having been helped by dozens of Dracula fans at last year's festival, a small group of hundred people or so packed into the Brasov streets, nothing could have prepared him for the loud feedback of thousands he received.

After regaining his normally cool composure, the Count stood up straight and gave a short, polite wave to the audience, particularly towards the screaming group of women standing near the front of the platform who addressed him so enthusiastically, before taking his seat with the others. His normally pale skin was flushed with tinges of red as a stupidly wide grin stretched across his face, unaccustomed to having so much positive feedback.

 _"That's quite a welcome,"_ the emcee commented. _"So great to have all you legends here with us today."_

"Thanks, Tom, we're excited to be here," said Griffin.

_"Did you have any problems getting here? I imagine that it wasn't easy getting through all the mountain traffic."_

"Oh no, the parking accommodations were fine. You do validate parking hearses, right?" The audience laughed at Griffin's serious question, which confused Drac. People still drove hearses, right? Gratefully, Tom the emcee just smiled and said, _"Yes, we do,"_ and continued on with the show. _"So Count-"_ Tom began before the vampire cut him off.

"Please, Tom, call me Dracula." Never had he been addressed so formally, so many times, in over a century. As much as he respected tradition and social formalities, it was starting to get old.

_"Now Dracula, I hear you and your friends came by our monster festival last year. Is this true?"_

"Yes. My friends and I were driving through town on the way to the airport when we ran into oncoming traffic from your monster festival and had to walk on foot."

_"I remember that. If I remember correctly, your friend Frankenstein climbed onto a balloon effigy of himself and roared at the crowd to help clear a path for you, which pegs the question: if you and your friends have been in hiding for so many years, why reveal yourselves now?"_

"Ah y-yes. Well, it's a long story-"

_"We've got an hour and a half."_

"Well, you see, it all started about a year ago..." Dracula began to regale Tom with all the details of what happened last year. Naturally, he tried to leave out the extra details, like the fact that he made anti-human propaganda slideshows or the fact that his own chef had tried to cook Johnny into a 'human potpie,' things that probably wouldn't win over a human audience for his hotel. Occasionally, one of his friends would add their input to the story, but the basic premise wasn't lost on them.

 _"So let me get this straight...You run a hotel? Dracula... runs a hotel?"_ Tom turned towards him in surprise. Well, not entirely lost on them.

"Yeah. Drac has been running a hotel for monsters for almost a century now," Murray explained. "It's a place where monsters can unwind without ever having to worry about humans, but now it's more like a vacation destination."

"Basically, it's a place where we can be _au natural_ ," the Invisible Man called Griffin spoke into the microphone, sounding like he was making a comedic gesture if he was visible, earning a few chuckles from the audience.

_"Why would you do this?"_

"Well, originally it was an idea my late wife and I had planned to be a safe haven for our daughter to grow up away from the fear and persecution from humankind," Drac began to reminisce, thinking back on his sweet Martha and the future they had hoped for their daughter. "But eventually it became a place where all monsters could come and relax and be themselves, but as you can see, that didn't turn out exactly as planned."

_"And this hotel of yours, is it open to humans or is it exclusively for monsters?"_

"Actually, in the near future, we're planning on re-opening the hotel to humans as well as monsters." Murmurs erupted from the crowd. Questions spit out in rapid fire from the crowd, like "are there real monsters," "is it safe?", and "is there a day spa?" and "can I apply for a position there?"

_"Wow, that seems like the perfect segue to our Q & A portion of the event, so if any of you in the audience have questions for our monsters, please form an orderly line by the microphone stands by our stage crew."_

Almost immediately, people began getting out of their seats as two long lines formed down the isles of seats, taking turns with the other line speaking into the microphone the staff members had set up. A large black wolf walked up to the microphone before he pulled off the bone mask with red outlines and yellow eyes and revealed a young man with black hair.

_"My name's Jim, and my question is for Frank. If you're really Frankenstein's monster, then where are your bolts?"_

"Oh, I got my bolts removed years ago. They always got caught on my neckties," Frank explained as the line kept moving along. A woman in her early twenties in a sexy devil costume now walked up to the mic.

_"My name's Jamie and my question is for the Invisible Man."_

"Fire away," said Griffin. The girl looked like she was trying not to laugh as she shyly spoke into the microphone.

 _"Mr. Griffin, I was wondering: are you naked?"_ The girl let out an embarrassed giggle as a couple of 'oooohs' and wolf whistles were heard from the crowd.

"Don't be embarrassed," Griffin spoke with a smile. "No, I actually get that question a lot. I used to wear regular clothes that could be seen all the time, but that got me spotted almost immediately, especially during swimsuit weather, so now I wear clothes made specially by the Inviso-Clothes line of fashion, since what they make refracts light. I wouldn't recommend buying from it though, not unless you want to run around naked. It's only for invisible people, and the fabric is absolutely horrible on my washer and dryer."

_"Then why do you wear glasses that are visible?"_

"Because I have really bad eyesight and my prescription sometimes changes, so I regularly have to keep getting new ones, though," he lowered his glasses and spoke with a low, seductive voice. "I don't need them to see how gorgeous you are." The girl let out another embarrassed laugh before walking back to her seat, flying high from Griffin's compliment.

"Really? You had to flirt with her?" Drac arched an eyebrow as Griffin seat tilted back casually.

"Come on, Drac, loosen up. You're not nearly this stiff around monsters at the hotel," Griffin covered his mic and whispered to Drac while Frank answered another question. "Just roll with the punches. It's all about having fun with it." As much as he hated to admit it, Griffin was right. He just had to learn to roll with it.

"...And that's why I'm afraid of fire," Frank finished. The crowd did a lot of murmurs and nods before the next person stepped up, a stout, middle-aged man with russet hair and a lab coat who clearly didn't get out of his parent's basement all that much.

 _"I'm Chris and my question is for the mummy,"_ he said with strong Russian-esque accent. _"If the process of mummification involve having tools pull out the brain through the nose and store it in a container, then how can you function right now without a brain?"_

This time everyone at the table shared a look at before looking at Murray, who seemed just as perplexed as everyone else. "Uh... I don't know, man. I'm a comedian, not a scientist," Murray slowly shrugged and let out an awkward chuckle before scratching the back of his head. "I've honestly never thought about it, but then again how can I when my brains have already been scooped out?" This earned a couple laughs from the audience as they moved onto a girl with curly... was that _pink_ hair?

 _"Hi!~ I'm Megumi-"_ the girl with long pink pigtails said with a saccharine voice. _"-and my question is for Count Dracula: is it true about vampires being unable to enter houses if they're not invited in?"_

Drac's brow furrowed as he leaned forward towards the microphone. "Personally, I think it would be considered rude to enter someone's house uninvited, but no. We can enter houses uninvited the same way you can." How did people come up with this stuff? Where did people get all these strange superstitions? Were they getting false information from some sort of outside source? He couldn't dwell on it too long because now a boy dressed as a dapper skeleton stepped up towards the microphone, though the Mon-Con staff had to lower the stand a few notches before the boy could talk into it.

_"My name's Jack and this question goes to both Wayne and Dracula. In a fight between a vampire or a werewolf, who would win?"_

"Vampire," the duo answered in unison.

"What?" Griffin asked, unsure of the question before he tuned back in. "Oh! Yeah. Vampire, hands down."

_"Why? Don't you have claws and teeth that could rip him apart?"_

"So does he," Wayne added. "Besides just because I have teeth and claws doesn't mean a werewolf could take down a vampire, at least not all by themselves. We're pack hunters. We take down large prey in numbers. Frank would be a better competitor than me."

"Yeah. I've beaten him at arm wrestling," Frank agreed, jabbing a thumb towards the Count.

 _"I think we'd all like to see that,"_ Tom offered and the crowd started to chant. Frank and Drac turned towards each other and shrugged before they stood at opposite sides of the table and clasped hands.

"You're going down," the golem challenged.

"In your nightmares, Frank," Drac smirked. Finally, a moment to show off his power. Tom stood over them as referee and counted them down. Three... two... one... go! The monster rivals clenched fists and pushed forcefully against the other. The table began to cry out in protest as the hinges underneath began to whine and creak to the point where no one knew who was going to give out first, the table or the contestants?

Drac gave Frank an overly dramatic yawn as the vampire's arm remained immobile against his friend's desperate struggles. Finally, the monster's bicep bulged too much for his sutures to handle as threads began popping and coming undone. Finally, after much protest, Drac slammed Frank's arm down into the table as it detached from the latter's shoulder, cracking the table in half and causing the legs to bend awkwardly at the bolt-heads.

"Whoo! Yeah!" Drac hooted raising his arms up in triumph as the crowd addressed their victor, chanting his name over and over. "Say my name!"

 _"Can we get a new table, please?"_ the emcee asked over the crowd's roar, the Mon-Con staff trying to calm the crowds down into less of a frenzy. After a few minutes, a new but much smaller table was supplied for Frank, Wayne, and Drac's side of the table as Griffin and Murray awkwardly shifted down the table and squished together.

More questions after that debacle continued while Frank reconnected his arm, some about monster myths being debunked, others more personal like their favorite food or pastime. A few were even about the hotel, asking questions along the lines of "where is your hotel located" and "is it in a castle" and "when will the grand reopening take place for humans." Of course, Drac couldn't give them any clear answers. There were some other matters he had to attend to before making any major plans. It was a big deal, revealing his monster hotel to the human public. Instead, he just mentioned that it was an ongoing project with no real finalized date yet and that they were conducting surveys to generate interest in human audiences and how to make it better for the future. One hotel related question did leave him a bit stumped.

 _"The hotel you run is a family business, right?"_ asked an African man clad in black leather and sunglasses. _"Assuming your daughter marries Johnny, the hotel will become theirs to run after you retire, right?"_

"That won't happen!" Drac snapped suddenly. "Err- I mean, they're still dating. It will probably be a long time before anything like that happens. Next question!" His heart began to ache again at the thought of the warm light his daughter gave him as the room grew colder with each passing second. Before Drac could recover, another girl stepped up to the microphone.

_"How is your daughter, Dracula?"_

"She's good. She's uh... she's currently in Paris with her boyfriend," Drac answered slowly into the microphone.

 _"And you still think she's not going to get engaged?"_ chimed in another person from the other microphone line, a fully dressed tree ogre wearing a black shogun _kabuto_ made from black painted tree branches and fiery eyebrows.

"I'm not talking about this! Next question!" he snarled angrily, trying to keep himself from going full-out beast mode on this unsuspecting human population. He needed to keep it under control. He couldn't scare the crowd, he _shouldn't_ scare the crowd. Human paranoia and fear was more dangerous than any poison or weapon that could be used to kill a monster.

"I think Drac is having a mental breakdown," Frank whispered out of range from the microphone to his friends. Gratefully, the emcee was eager to step in, sensing a fast growing crisis.

_"Okay, guys. No more questions for Dracula. Do we have any more questions for the rest of our monsters?"_

Part of the crowd groaned as about half the line broke apart, but new humans almost immediately began to replace the old ones that had left. The panel went on as planned and the fans kept their word. No more questions were asked for Dracula.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so there are many references here. Wren Fields is a pun on the name Renfield, the crazy guy from Bram Stoker's Dracula who was obsessed with the titular character. I wasn't sure where I was going to put him in this story, but I'm glad I finally did. Subservient fan-boy stagehand intern seemed like an appropriate place for him. Slender Man is also there, for those who got that, along with some Beowulf grimm from RWBY. The girl that asked about vampires entering houses uninvited is from the anime Shiki, and Blade from Marvel comics is also in this, along with Aku from Samurai Jack, Dexter from Dexter's Labratory (a reference to Genndy's earlier work, along with the name 'Chris,' Dexter's voice actress), and Him from The Powerpuff Girls (though it was an actual girl dressed as Him, rather than a guy in drag), a major project that Genndy worked on with the creator, Craig McCracken.


End file.
